Mountbatten’s Nigel Hartley MBE has described the passing of the Assisted Dying Bill in the House of Commons as a ‘huge step for our society’, but has stressed that the legalisation of assisted dying must not come at the expense of hospice and palliative care.
Nigel, who leads both Mountbatten Isle of Wight and Mountbatten Hampshire, has issued a detailed response following Friday’s vote in the House of Commons, where the Bill passed 314 to 291.
Both of the Isle of Wight’s MPs – Joe Robertson (East) and Richard Quigley (West) – voted against the legislation, as previously reported by Island Echo.
Hartley has said:
“The vote to pass the Terminally Ill Adults [end-of-life] Bill is a huge step for our society.
“Over the next few years we will see how this develops, through further debate and a vote in the House of Lords.
“Assisted dying will never be an alternative to hospice and specialist palliative care.
“If assisted dying is legalised, it will be a choice for some alongside expert and compassionate end-of-life care services, which remain a basic human right.”
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Mountbatten has reiterated that its focus remains on ensuring access to expert care for those facing the end of life across the Isle of Wight, Southampton, and Hampshire. The charity is calling on the government to reinforce its commitment to hospice funding, recognising that quality end-of-life support will continue to be essential, even if assisted dying becomes law.
The Bill now moves to the House of Lords for further scrutiny. If passed there, the government would have up to 4 years to implement the legislation.
Assisted dying will be a disaster,
palliative care is the better option.
Says someone who clearly isn’t dying and still enjoys a quality of life.
Try telling that to someone with severe MS who was badly burned in a housefire and had to sit there and burn because she couldn’t move to escape the flames. Then she spent one year in a burns unit having skin graft after skin graft and then skin grafted bedsores from the places they took the fresh skin from, then a further 2 years in Putney Incurables waiting to die, in pain, couldn’t move so had to be painfully manually turned every hour, day and night, couldn’t eat solids, but still compos mentis enough to say ‘can’t you just kill me please?’ every time I visited for the 3 long years it took her body to finally give up and die.
And you reckon that’s the better option do you? Would you do that to your pet, let alone your mother?
I was 19 at the time watching that.
I hate these people who seem to think they have the right to say what some other rational, competent, adult can chose to do with their own life…
Palliative care is extremely important, to reduce suffering where possible, but it should not be forced to be the only option, especially when, by the circumstance of the individual, it is ineffective in providing an acceptable (to that individual) quality of life.
Unfortunately there is no one rule suits all. Decisions should be made by those most affected because it is those people that will have the deepest understanding of the consequences.
Consultation with these groups should be done consistently throughout the decision making process – excluding them risks making a decision that fails to meet real needs! And can cause extended and harm and pain; both physical and mental.
Assisted dying should be a human right as long as you have the mental capacity to make that decision
And that is the most common important and the bottom line to this arguement,it’s my right,your right to choose if we have all options considered and this is our path of choice,if the path of care is the excellent palliative care offered by Hospices also yours,my right, .
With this marxist government behind it, what I may once have supported, has dark echos of the film ‘logans run’