Differing view on right to die

SIR, – However strong the feelings and opinions that surround our natural desire to die with dignity, the comments expressed by the Rev Dr John Cameron (Letters, May 10) were very unfair and in no way reflect my own experience as a parish minister.

I have spent long hours with terminally-ill people, in their own homes, in large NHS hospitals and in local cottage hos- pitals. I experienced very little of what Mr Cameron described as “people living out their final days in the grossest indignity and suffering”.

I have certainly seen terminally-ill people undergo a certain level of indignity and suffering in the course of dying. However, I have little doubt that this was as a result of the illness, the symptoms of which cannot always be fully alleviated by nursing care and painkillers, no matter how much skill, compassion, dedication and effort the medical staff contribute.

Mr Cameron writes of medical staff, saying: “In harrowing scenes, it was often clear that insufficient painkillers were being prescribed because staff feared for their careers.” It is very unfair to suggest that our medical staff are allowing patients to suffer to protect their own careers. In my experience, I have often met staff who put the interest of their patients before their own interests. The Rev David Whyte, Lemanfield Crescent, Garmouth. moral, and ethical implications of helping someone to die with dignity, we need to look at practical ways to overcome what is perhaps the real stumbling block to legalising euthanasia (literally a “good death”) – the fear that it would be exploited by those wishing to gain financially or otherwise from the death of someone no longer able to make decisions for themselves.

In Scotland, we have an excellent system for protecting vulnerable children who are not able to make decisions for themselves – the Children’s Hearings system.

Surely there is not that much difference between the needs of vulnerable young children and those of vulnerable adults no longer able to make their own decisions?

Of course there would be financial costs, but these would be mainly administrative as the lay people on Children’s Panels are volunteers. And, overall, these costs are likely to be less than the emotional and financial burdens on families and the financial costs to society that result from denying a “good death” to those who have lost all dignity and quality of life and would no longer wish to remain alive were they able to make that decision for themselves.