Catholic Medical Quarterly Volume 75(2)  May 2025

Submission

Submission to Select Committee on the Assisted Dying Bill from Dr Tony Cole

I am a retired consultant paediatrician with a wide experience of 50 years in medicine and 12 years as a magistrate .  I was a hospice foundation governor.

  1. An accurate prognosis that death will take place within six months is impossible.
  2. Three weeks from a request for assisted death, does not allow for due diligence or for a court to make a decision. Are there sufficient judges willing to take responsibility for such an action?
  3. Complications can arise from taking lethal drugs ,and death not take place for one or two hours in many cases.
  4. Doctors are unlikely to spot signs of coercion and families and next of kin may hold contrary views on assisted suicide.
  5. Because doctors may not support assisted suicide, those providing the lethal drugs will become a self selecting group at odds with colleagues.
  6. A growing societal expectation of suicide will impact its prevention in general. It is already very common.
  7. There is no provision in the Bill for palliative care. This is already often lacking or inadequate.

Signed;
Dr Anthony Cole JP FRCPE FRCPCH