assisted death Under the plans being worked on by MPs, patients are forced to consume 100-pill bitter cocktails in their last moments.

Palliative care doctors warn that under proposed assisted dying legislation, individuals would have to either swallow poison pill “sludge” under time pressure or inject the same drugs used in “judicial executions”.

Labor MP Kim Leadbeater claimed assisted dying Bill It will offer terminally ill patients the assurance of a painless, dignified death.

But doctors who reviewed the lawmaker’s draft bill published on Monday said patients would not be guaranteed a “Hollywood death” under his plans.

The draft law provides two methods for drug administration: self-administration, which doctors say would involve taking up to 300 times the therapeutic dose of drugs orally, or use of a “medical device” to deliver a toxic infusion. The patient must perform the “last action” such as pressing a button to start the infusion.

Baroness Ilora Finlay, professor of palliative medicine, said the pills should be made into “some kind of sludge that tastes absolutely bad and makes you sick to your stomach”, adding: “This is not a Hollywood death.”

This diverse body of work published a paper in 2022 detailing how a family in California, under time pressure, had to pour out more than 100 pills for their aunt to consume.

The unnamed relative wrote: “The mountain of powder we poured into the sugar syrup formed half a glass of mud, so bitter it literally burned my tongue,” adding: “And my aunt, who could barely swallow water, had to drink it all” To ‘ensure success’ In five minutes.”

In Oregon, another state where patients consumed the cocktail orally, the average time from ingestion to death was 53 minutes, with some people taking up to 137 hours to die.

Lady Finlay said: “When you look at drug mixtures, those taken orally, it What do they use in Oregon“We know that the incidence of complications is between 6 percent and 11 percent.”

Ms Leadbeater’s Bill also allows doctors to “prepare a medical device that will enable a person to self-administer the substance and… assist that person to take or otherwise self-administer the substance”.

It is understood that such devices will include syringe drivers that deliver medication into the patient’s vein.

Critics warned that this meant: a kind of “back door euthanasia”saying the app can undermine trust in palliative medicine, which uses the same devices known as syringe drivers to relieve pain.

Lady Finlay said the drugs used included a short-acting anesthetic and a drug that caused paralysis, meaning “you suffocate to death because you can’t breathe”.

The body will try to fight this suffocation, he said, meaning “it’s quite likely you’ll regain consciousness.” But no one has ever done any research to show whether you do this or not.”

CEO of Care Not Killing, Dr. Gordon Macdonald said that although framed as an “assisted suicide” bill, Mrs Leadbeater’s Bill “turned into a form of backdoor euthanasia where doctors could be forced to set up machinery to deliver poison”. killing their patients”.

Honorary secretary of the Palliative Medicine Association, Dr. Matthew Dore said: “If medicines are given by simple consent in this way (intravenously or subcutaneously), not only is it misleading to describe the Bill as anything other than euthanasia, but it also destroys patients’ and their families’ faith in how palliative care currently controls symptoms with syringe drives.” It does.

“When palliative care suggests the syringe drive, it becomes terrifying for patients and their families. an end to their lives and therefore may cause harm by denying adequate analgesia and symptom control.

Alex Ruck Keene KC says Parliament must face consequences of bill will be taken into consideration soon.

He said: “Requiring a doctor to be present but preventing him from giving the medication or ‘increasing the dose’ if there are complications may seem like a strange moral twist in defending the idea that it’s just about help.”

Both doctors and lawyers have expressed concern that Ms Leadbeater’s bill does not include a provision for paramedics to intervene if something goes wrong during treatment – perhaps to avoid a scenario in which doctors take the final action that kills the patient. procedure.

MPs will vote on Ms Leadbeater’s private members’ Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill on November 29. This will be the first time the House of Commons has debated the issue since 2015.

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