Euthanasia taking place in hospitals, claims expert

THE controversial pro-euthanasia expert who was recently forced to abandon a lecture in Cork has claimed the contentious practice of assisted-death is already taking place in Irish hospitals.

Regulations here governing the withdrawal of life-saving equipment or care in hospitals were extraordinarily “ambiguous”, said Professor Len Doyal yesterday.

Doctors in Ireland, he said, were routinely taking decisions to withdraw ventilators or medicines for brain damaged patients.

As such, he said: “A form of euthanasia is already being practiced in hospitals in Ireland as it is in hospitals all over the world.”

Dr Doyal indicated there are very severely brain damaged patients in hospitals who “can’t do anything, interact with anyone”.

He said: “At times decisions are made to withdraw life-sustaining treatment from these patients. For example, they might be on a ventilator or they might have pneumonia and might not be given antibiotic cover.

“A whole range of life sustaining treatments that doctors may decide not to give them and therefore doctors may decide to in effect foreshorten the lives of these patients. So this already happens.”

Prof Doyal had been invited by Cork University Hospital (CUH) to give a lecture on euthanasia in the hospital earlier this month.

Irish MEP Kathy Sinnot had said, at the time, that putting on the planned CUH lecture was “sinister” when health services were making substantial cutbacks.

The professor of medical ethics and the event’s organisers were forced to abandon the controversial talk after an angry crowd broke up the meeting with shouts of “murder”.

Prof Doyal told Karen Coleman on Newstalk 106’s The Wide Angle that he had been put in a “very dangerous” situation with the “shouting mob”. Many in the protesting crowd at the lecture theatre had been “off their heads”, he said.

The confrontation by the crowd was an affront to the freedom of speech and was “very sad” for Ireland, he contended. He criticised the role of gardaí at the event, claiming they did nothing.

“I could have been hurt,” he said.

On the issue of euthanasia, Prof Doyal went on to say that the only morally acceptable circumstances were not to allow very sick humans to suffer for “pointless reasons”.

Medical guidance rules in Ireland under the Medical Council about life saving scenarios were “very vague” and “ambiguous”, he added.