Gordon Brown, the former prime minister of England from the Labour Party, has written an op-ed in The Guardian against the current assisted suicide push in both London and in Scotland. He writes that palliative care is woefully underfunded, and until that is rectified, assisted suicide should not be under consideration.
The longer this legislation sits, the more people seem to be realizing its grave implications.
Here’s some of how he paints the picture:
The shocking revelations from the National Audit Office and Hospice UK in October about the worsening financial crisis faced by end-of-life care are a sharp reminder of what needs to be changed if we are to be fair to dying people. . . .
According to the Commission on Palliative and End-of-Life Care, between 450,000 and 540,000 of the 600,000 people who die each year in the UK would have benefited from but didn’t receive palliative care, either in a hospice or through hospice care in the community. Although 56% of those with a preference say they would choose to die at home, 43% of deaths take place in hospitals.
With its proposed overhaul of the palliative care system, the government has, to its credit, promised better access to care at home and fewer trips to A&E. But there is a long way to go when, as of today, just half (51%) of those who need it have had specialist palliative care at some point during their final days. And while ministers have recently given £100m towards adult hospices and £80m for children’s care, Hospice UK says this has been wiped out by rising staffing costs and by local health authority decisions. Not having proper contracts for the services they provide and with no agreed costs for commissioning palliative care, hospices report having to fall back on the funding they receive from their charity shops. Nearly 60% of hospices ended their last financial year in deficit, and this year the sector is issuing warnings over longer-term funding.
It is the poorest communities that lose most from the patchwork of end-of-life care. More than one in four people who die between the ages of 20 and 65 are in poverty. Yet evidence from St Christopher’s hospice in south London found poorer communities are less likely to have a hospice service than wealthier ones. As Dr Jamilla Hussain, a palliative care consultant in Bradford, has also shown, ethnic minority communities are less likely to access end-of-life care services.
I’ll take a call to caution. It reads like an honest confrontation with the facts of the suicidal posture. Every time I see a new Scott Adams video pop up on my phone, from his daily podcast, I give thanks that he had the time and caution to not take the prescription he sought and is still among us — and has come to realize the assisted-suicide sell is not completely honest about the physical and emotional realities to the person being killed and those who love him. He’s still suffering from cancer. He is still taking medication. He is still very much living. Give everyone that chance. It’s trite to say life is full of surprises, but miracles can happen in those last weeks and days and hours of life. I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and have heard so many stories. You may know exactly what I mean from experience. You cut off the possibly of miracles when you decide to kill — or are pressured to kill — yourself. It’s not right or just or fair.
Thank you, Gordon Brown, who is absolutely right about the need for the West more broadly to give palliative care the support and credit it deserves.