Assisted dying has been a hot topic both north and south of the border this week, as Scottish politicians voted on Tuesday on their version of the euthanasia bill while Kim Leadbeater’s legislation will face another round of voting in Westminster on Friday. But in another blow for the Labour MP, now the Royal College of Psychiatrists has voiced its opposition to the bill – citing its concern over ‘many, many factors’. Oo er.
Speaking to the Beeb’s Radio 4 Today programme this morning, the Royal College’s Dr Trudi Seneviratne insisted that ‘there would be many, many factors in the bill as it stands that would need to be addressed’. She accused the current legislation of turning the role of psychiatrists in the process into a ‘tick-box exercise’, and added: ‘We have up to nine points that we want MPs to consider.’ These range from the issue around whether assisted dying would become a ‘treatment option’, problems with the how the bill would interact with the current Mental Capacity Act and exactly would oversight would need to be in place. She went on: ‘The workforce simply isn’t there. There’s a huge increase in mental disorder across the board – we don’t have enough [psychiatrists].’ This echoes the concerns of experts who have warned that there may not actually be enough psychiatrists for the bill to work in the way that is being suggested. Nice to see the pro-euthanasia crowd has done its research, eh?
More than that, however, was the fear that the assisted dying bill failed, in its current form, to consider the needs of the terminally ill – especially those who become depressed as a result of their condition. ‘When someone has a terminal illness,’ Seneviratne said, ‘they may well develop a depression, a mental disorder, and that may lead to feeling suicidal. But actually if you treat the depression, that suicidality might lift.’ The Royal College’s concerns pose problems for pro-euthanasia politicians, not least because the bill currently states that an expert panel of medical professionals – including a psychiatrist – would oversee assisted dying cases. It’s not a good look for Leadbeater…
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