DAME NUALA O’Loan has responded to a nursing union’s change to its opposition to assisted suicide by calling for dialogue on care for the terminally ill.
Dame Nuala, who takes her seat as a cross-bencher in the House of Lords in the autumn, said people should examine why some individuals have opted to use Dignitas, the Swiss organisation which helps those planning to end their own lives.
“When you are talking about assisted suicide, you need to go back to what you are really talking about, which is suicide,” she said.
“Then we need to think what suicide is about and why people commit suicide, and perhaps the greatest thing that we need to do – looking at the fact that some 117 individuals have chosen to go to Dignitas rather than die in what they fear might be be great pain, etc – is to look at our provision for the terminally ill,” she told the BBC.
Dame Nuala, the former police ombudsman in Northern Ireland, made her comments following a decision by the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) union to drop its long-standing opposition to assisted suicide.
The new policy, announced following a consultation with some 175,000 members in the UK, means the union neither supports nor opposes a change in British law to allow assisted suicide.
RCN chief executive and general secretary Dr Peter Carter said: “We fully support the common themes that came through the consultation, namely maintaining the nurse-patient relationship, protecting vulnerable patients and making sure there is adequate investment in end-of-life care.”