ONE SCOT’S JOURNEY TO DIGNITAS CLINIC
COLIN CAMPBELL HAS CHOSEN TO TELL SUNDAY HERALD READERS ABOUT THE PAINFUL DECISION HE HAS TAKEN TO END HIS OWN LIFE, AND HIS ANGER WITH THE SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT FOR FAILING TO PASS A RIGHT-TO-DIE LAW WHICH WOULD ALLOW PEOPLE LIKE HIM TO END THEIR LIFE WITH
ASCOT with crippling multiple sclerosis has given up waiting for the law on assisted dying to change in Scotland and will travel to Switzerland instead to end his life.
Colin Campbell, 56, from Inverness is now making final arrangements to die at the Dignitas House near Zurich and expects to be able to take his life there within weeks. His decision comes amid a new campaign by Dignity in Dying which is calling on MSPs to back a bill legalising assisted dying for patients who are already terminally ill, in line with laws in Canada, the US and Australia.
The former IT consultant has primary progressive MS, a rarer form of the degenerative disease affecting around 10-15 per cent of sufferers, where symptoms steadily worsen over time without any periods of remission.
He first joined the Swiss assisted and accompanied suicide organisation in 2003 after being diagnosed in 1995, but postponed using the service because he believed that Scotland was on the verge of legalising assisted dying.
However, Campbell said he was “horrified” when MSPs rejected the 2015 bill on physician-assisted suicide and now wants to take control over his own death before the disease leaves him too ill to travel. He spoke to the Sunday Herald last week during a consultation visit to Zurich, where he has told doctors he wants to die “as soon as possible”.
Campbell is attending Dignitas for a preliminary consultation prior to the final visit planned.
He said: “With primary progressive, when you first start off with it it’s bad, but not too bad. Then as you get older it will speed up very quickly. It was as recently as two years ago when I had to start using a walking stick and it’s got worse on an almost daily basis.
“For me to get to Switzerland was a horrendous journey. Living in Inverness, there isn’t one direct flight – I had to fly via Gatwick – so it’s traumatic. Once you need to be shuttled around in a wheelchair it’s just a hideous ordeal.”
He added that the current situation which outlaws any form of assisted dying in Britain is creating a culture of “suicide for the rich”, with only better-off patients able to afford the fees and flights for Dignitas.
Campbell, who never married and has no children, said he has been left exasperated after an attempt to discuss the right to die with his doctor resulted in him being referred to a psychiatrist.
“Of course she confirmed that I was absolutely, normally sane – just showing the normal depression of having a progressive, incurable disease,” said Campbell. “It was a complete waste of my time and a complete waste of her
It’s an individual choice. This is the right thing for me – this is why I’m in Switzerland now. It’s an act of unbelievable cruelty what some people are having to endure
time, but it was covering the doctor. Doctors aren’t even allowed to discuss it because if one of their patients goes on to commit suicide and they’re deemed to have assisted them, they’re in big trouble. It’s laughably awful.
“Then you get the people who say ‘why don’t you just get on with it?’ and kill yourself here. But what if you overdose and survive and you still have your illness, but now your kidneys don’t work? In Switzerland, they want to protect people from making these messy suicide attempts. Jumping in front of a train, jumping off a building, drowning yourself . Often there’s no dignity at all in suicide.”
Campbell also stressed that the paperwork required to obtain permission for an assisted death in Switzerland was “extremely thorough”, with everything from medical records
to his education history requested. “A lot of people think it’s just a case of showing up, but it’s not simple. It’s complex. They’ve got to be absolutely convinced of your reasons for wanting a voluntary assisted suicide.
“It’s an individual choice. This is the right thing for me – this is why I’m in Switzerland now. It’s an act of unbelievable cruelty what some people [in Britain] are having to endure.”
Alyson Thomson, director for Dignity in Dying Scotland, the organisation leading the campaign for the law on the right to die to be changed in Scotland, said: “It is a tragic and unacceptable reality that seriously-ill people like Colin Campbell feel they have no other choice but to spend their final days travelling hundreds of miles to Switzerland in order to have the dignified death they desire.
“We know that every two weeks someone from Britain travels to Dignitas for an assisted death. Another 300 terminally-ill people end their own lives at home every year – behind closed doors, frightened and alone. Many more suffer until their illness finally kills them or starve themselves to death. It is clear that our current law is broken and needs to change.
“The majority of people believe we should have more choice and control at end of life and that terminally-ill people should be able to control and manage their final weeks and months of life humanely and with dignity. This means being able to die at home in the country in which you have lived. We are calling for the Scottish Parliament to address this issue by introducing compassionate assisted-dying legislation.”