I’ve seen too many deaths to think that assisted dying is a good idea

Over my quarter-of-a-century of being a doctor, I have overseen thousands of deaths. For a busy hospital physician, this is not an unusual number. Helping people die is a core part of our job.

In the Commons today, the Assisted Dying Bill gets its first reading. But the debate about this bill is missing a crucial detail: assisted dying is already something of a reality. For those in unsalvageable agony, I like to think it happens almost automatically. Neither people, nor the NHS, being perfect, there will be errors and omissions. But I’m confident that assisted dying, in a sense, happens often already, and I speak from experience. 

Hospital is the most common place of death. When the end comes, its preceding indignities and inconveniences, its terrors and agonies, are more than familiar to me. Working in a wedding florists, perhaps, or an exuberantly joyous restaurant – somewhere people went out of happiness rather than necessity – would have made for a different life.