Letter in Irish Times questions lack of care to disabled in light of assisted suicide push

Image credit: National Cancer Institute via Unsplash

An excellent letter featured in the Irish Times last week in response to the Dáil approving of the Joint Oireachtas Committee report that recommended legalising assisted suicide.

Anne Marie Devlin wrote a letter to the Irish Times to question the HSE’s inability to provide assisted living to her husband who suffers with motor neurone disease, but that he would immediately qualify for assisted suicide under the assisted suicide report that was approved by the government.

The letter is as follows:

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A chara, – As a partner of a person living with motor neurone disease, I would like to share with you some of the paradoxes in how our health system deals with it.

According to the recently accepted assisted dying report, my husband would be eligible for fast-tracked assisted dying. However, according to the HSE, he is not sick enough for a medical card; we had to fight for one. He is not ill enough for a primary medical certificate. He does not qualify for a disabled parking disc even though he can only walk a few metres. We don’t qualify for grants to adapt the house.

Can someone please explain how we cannot qualify for assisted living but we automatically qualify for assisted death? – Yours, etc,

ANNE MARIE DEVLIN

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This comes after the Dáil voted last Wednesday on the Joint Oireachtas Committee report that recommended legalising assisted suicide under “certain restrictions”. The report was approved with 76 over 53 in favour. Whilst the approval of this report does not immediately legalise assisted suicide, it means that the government has now “noted” it.

The government approved the report despite the concerns people had over legalising assisted suicide, with Aontú leader, Peadar Tóibín saying that legalising assisted suicide would “put pressure on thousands of older, vulnerable people who feel they are a burden.”

This has been evident in Canada from a series of cases, with one recent case being of a woman who was repeatedly offered assisted suicide as she was due to receive a mastectomy for breast cancer. The unnamed woman said that the repeated offers made her feel like “a problem that needed to be [gotten] rid of instead of a patient in need of treatment”. 

Sandra Parda of the Life Institute commented saying: “Bravo to Ms Devlin for speaking up about this issue. It is shameful that our government have approved an assisted suicide bill, but have not looked into providing assisted living care for people who need it. Life is valuable and the government should be doing everything they can to ensure people are able to live life, not approving measures that would hasten someone’s death”.