Why an 'assisted death' is almost certainly NOT what you think it is

Why an 'assisted death' is almost certainly NOT what you think it is
Why an 'assisted death' is almost certainly NOT what you think it is

Kurt Huschle was certain he wanted to die. Diagnosed at 58 with incurable bile-duct cancer, he was in agony and his pain medication no longer seemed to work. Once a fit and muscular man, he had been reduced to a walking skeleton.

In 2016, Kurt, an aircraft engineer, and his wife Susan had voted in a referendum in favour of a new law to allow doctors in the American state where they lived, Colorado, to help terminally ill patients die by prescribing a lethal cocktail of drugs.

On July 10 the following year — their 24th wedding anniversary — Susan booked a table at their favourite restaurant in their town, Highlands Ranch, but Kurt was so ill he could barely stay awake, let alone eat. Unable to climb the stairs to their bedroom, he was sleeping in the sitting room — and, six days later, he woke her in the middle of the night. ‘I want to die. Will you just let me go?’ he said.

Susan held him and tried to soothe him: ‘We’ll figure it out.’

As required by Colorado law, the couple had already asked two doctors to certify that he had less than six months to live, and filled out forms making it clear that Kurt wished to die at a moment of his choosing.

The cocktail of drugs had been prescribed and they had found a pharmacy ready to supply it in liquid form. They were told the process would probably take between two and four hours.

Kurt Huschle was certain he wanted to die. Diagnosed at 58 with incurable bile-duct cancer, he was in agony and his pain medication no longer seemed to work. Once a fit and muscular man, he had been reduced to a walking skeleton. Pictured: Kurt with his wife Susan in 2008

Kurt Huschle was certain he wanted to die. Diagnosed at 58 with incurable bile-duct cancer, he was in agony and his pain medication no longer seemed to work. Once a fit and muscular man, he had been reduced to a walking skeleton. Pictured: Kurt with his wife Susan in 2008

On the morning of July 16, a nurse arrived at their home and checked that Kurt stood by his decision. By noon, he was ready to go. Following the directions given, Susan mixed the contents of two small bottles into a bigger one and gave it to Kurt.

She had expected him to drink the drug cocktail, share a last hug, then pass away peacefully.

Instead, as Susan later told the Denver Post newspaper: ‘With every sip he’s choking and coughing, choking and coughing.’

After 20 minutes, she said, he began to gasp unevenly. He seemed to have lost consciousness. But more than four hours after he took the drugs, he was still alive.

Scared and upset, Susan called a doctor and asked for help. It was then the thought struck her that, like many dying patients, Kurt might still be partly conscious and able to hear her.

At 8.15pm, more than eight hours after Kurt took the drugs, he sat up in bed, retched and finally stopped breathing.

Susan said she still believed it was right to help him die. But it had not been a peaceful farewell and they had not been able to say goodbye as she had wanted.

Kurt’s story has relevance for Britain, as today peers will give Baroness Meacher’s Assisted Dying Bill its second reading.

It also figures prominently in a dossier compiled by the new All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Dying Well, made up of 30 MPs and five peers.

The Group is setting up an inquiry into questions which, it says, the Bill leaves unanswered — not only major ethical issues but the physical details of what it really means to be helped to die.

Many of us assume that assisted dying means being injected with a lethal dose of a drug such as morphine by a doctor, then going ‘gentle into that good night’.

But it doesn’t. That describes euthanasia — which, although legal in Belgium, the Netherlands and some other countries, is not envisaged here, for fear it might allow a new Harold Shipman, the family GP-turned- serial killer who is thought to have murdered up to 250 patients by giving them opiate overdoses.

Nor does it mean the introduction here of the equivalent of Dignitas, a Swiss society that provides assisted/accompanied suicide, supported by independent doctors, to members suffering from terminal or serious physical/ mental illnesses and where some 350 Britons have been helped to die. This, a spokeswoman for the Bill’s supporters told me, is not in their plans, either.

Baroness Grey-Thompson, who won 16 Paralympian medals as a wheelchair athlete, and is a member of the APPG, says: ‘Assisted dying is portrayed as this Hollywood death where you just slip away . . . the reality is not like this and people need to be made aware of it’

Baroness Grey-Thompson, who won 16 Paralympian medals as a wheelchair athlete, and is a member of the APPG, says: ‘Assisted dying is portrayed as this Hollywood death where you just slip away . . . the reality is not like this and people need to be made aware of it’

Instead, Meacher’s Bill would create something similar to the system used in Colorado and other American states. It would allow the prescription of a cocktail of drugs at a lethal dose for those meeting certain criteria.

The patient must be certified by two doctors to have less than six months to live, to have asked the High Court for permission, to have the necessary mental capacity to make the decision, and a genuine wish to end their life, having been made aware of the palliative care alternatives.

The only major difference from the U.S. system is that under Baroness Meacher’s Bill, a doctor would be present until the patient died. But the patient must administer the lethal dose themselves.

Even those paralysed or suffering from motor neurone disease would have to push a button to operate an intravenous pump — or even, in extreme cases, ‘switch it on’ with a blink. But most would have to drink a drug cocktail, just like Kurt.

Baroness Grey-Thompson, who won 16 Paralympian medals as a wheelchair athlete, and is a member of the APPG, says: ‘Assisted dying is portrayed as this Hollywood death where you just slip away . . . the reality is not like this and people need to be made aware of it.’

According to House of Lords convention, the Assisted Dying Bill will pass unopposed. Then it moves to its committee stage and, if successful there, to the Commons, where a political battle is certain.

Boris Johnson is said to be firmly opposed and, on Wednesday, the heads of the Anglican, Roman Catholic and Jewish faiths issued an unprecedented joint statement, saying that while they accepted that the Bill’s supporters wanted to alleviate suffering, it would put the vulnerable at risk. The way to help people die well was better palliative care, they said: ‘The aim of a compassionate society should be assisted living rather than an acceptance of assisted

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