‘Excuse me... You’re talking about the killing of patients. Get out’

YOU walk into a room and search for somewhere to sit. It’s crowded but luckily a single chair is still free, next to what appears to be a respectable grandmother.

She seems to fit perfectly into a Werther’s Original sweets advert family and smiles as you sit down, before slowly reaching to move her dainty handbag out of the way.

And then it begins.

“MURDERER”, she yells at the startled speaker.

“This is how Hitler started, what gives you the right? MURDERER.”

The speaker’s gone white with fear; you’ve gone red with embarrassment and prepare to make your escape to somewhere — anywhere — else in the room.

But its too late, the insults have spread like wildfire.

Grannies who outside shared a nice cup of tea are bashing bibles to the tune of Hail Mary hymns.

Grandads are approaching the podium armed with their version of the Constitution and waving 30 pieces of silver at people they insist have sold out patients by endorsing the killing of the old and the ill.

And young people in their 20s and 30s are shooting down free speech with the accuracy of a sniper. It all seems so unusual on the grounds of a hospital until you’re told the subject matter at the heart of the verbal bloodbath: euthanasia.

Yesterday at Cork University Hospital a controversial discussion on the issue, organised by the HSE as part of the facility’s seventh annual ethics forum spring lecture, descended into an equally controversial shouting match, with dozens of protesters preventing the debate from taking place.

The HSE notices said the lecture would be “interactive”, did not mean a change in policy, and had the sole purpose of creating lively debate on the subject. On those grounds the 20 second discussion was an unqualified success.

Seconds into the opening address by ethics forum chair Prof Eamon Quigley — who was preparing to introduce guest lecture Prof Len Doyal, a supporter of euthanasia and emeritus professor of medical ethics at the London School of Medicine and Dentistry — he was stopped in his tracks. “Excuse me,” a protester interrupted while leaving his seat to confront his adversary at the podium.

“Leave. You know nothing about my constitution. Murder is murder. Murder is murder. You’re talking about the killing of patients. Get out,” he roared.

As security arrived on the scene to the backing song of hymns from protesters, the concerning scenes grew worse, with organisers of the debate and Prof Doyal leaving surrounded by security staff in order to protect their safety.

Perhaps surprised at their sudden success the protesters, grew more confident and turned their attention to other members of the medical elite who had also attended the now-cancelled lecture.

One protester, a middle-aged man, took over the microphone and, clutching 30 pieces of silver, asked any member of CUH to come up and collect their bribe. “Judas took 30 pieces of silver. They are selling out the sick and the old, and what I would say is that this ethics committee has no ethics at all. Who would hold a meeting on Holy Thursday in Catholic Ireland to murder people,” he said.

Those protesting have since been at pains to stress that their actions were “peaceful”.

They were in the sense that nobody was physically assaulted. But ask Prof Deirdre Madden, stem cell advocate and member of the Medical Council of Ireland, and she may disagree, being left with no option but to leave after being subjected to calls of “Madden has no right to take away a life” by people she felt may have had no right to threaten a woman’s safety.

The euthanasia debate had caused controversy ever since it became public knowledge earlier this year, with those opposed to it insisting publicising information about the topic had nobody’s interest at heart.

Ironically, after yesterday’s farce, a discussion on euthanasia in Ireland may be the only issue to have died.

The HSE said the discussion has been cancelled with no rescheduled date in place.