Physician assisted suicide David Jeffrey's view point

Suicide 'shouldn't involve medics'

VIEWPOINT David Jeffrey  Palliative care expert Physician-assisted suicide is illegal in the UK Physician assisted suicide has been legal for a decade in the US state of Oregon. But palliative care specialist David Jeffrey says there are grave questions about whether people are being helped to die, when treatment for depression could be a highly successful alternative. In this week's Scrubbing Up column Dr Jeffrey, who is based at the University of Edinburgh, says a patient should be free to end their life - but doctors should not be involved. Oregon's 1997 Death with Dignity Act legalised physician-assisted suicide (PAS) for patients in the last six months of a terminal illness. A decade on, only one in 10 people requesting PAS proceed as far as picking up the medication.  The provision of end-of-life care in Oregon is so different to that in the UK that it cannot be claimed to be a valid basis for any change in existing UK law  And only half of those take the lethal drug. In 2007, official records show 85 prescriptions were written - the most since the law was introduce - but only 46 people took the medication. There were also three deaths in patients prescribed their drugs the previous year. In all, three people suffered complications. One patient took three days to die. more