Waterford woman calls for legislation on assisted suicide - 'I am constantly in pain and my speech is going'

A Waterford woman who suffers from the late stages of multiple sclerosis has called for the next Dáil to legislate for access to assisted suicide for those with terminal illness.

Kate Tobin, a 50-year-old former nun who now lives in Wexford, says she lives in constant pain, suffers numerous falls, and has been given little time to live by her doctors.

Having grown up in Lismore, Co Waterford, Ms Tobin moved to London after leaving school to become a nun.

She then joined a nursing order. However, she said that her superiors decided she “was having too much of a good time as a student” and requested her to leave her studies and return to her order.

Forced to choose between nursing and the sisterhood, Ms Tobin picked the former, and nursed in England until she returned to Ireland to care for her ill mother.

It was during a stint covering maternity leave at a nursing home in West Cork four years ago that Ms Tobin received the diagnosis that would change her life.

“I was getting clumsy, losing my balance and dropping things,” she said.

“I was constantly working, and so I blamed it on being tired and clumsy. But I developed a chest infection and went to the doctor about that.

“He thought I looked like someone who had suffered a stroke, and noticed that I was leaning on my left side. I went to hospital in Waterford, and there they told me I had MS,” she said.

Ms Tobin said that in September 2014 her consultant estimated that she had two years to live.

“He told me to enjoy my 50th birthday because I won’t have many more after it. I’m coming near the end,” she said.

Inspired by the Supreme Court challenge by the late Marie Fleming, Ms Tobin wants the State to introduce euthanasia for those suffering debilitating conditions.

“I saw the Marie Fleming case and thought ‘I never want to get like that’,” said Ms Tobin.

“I am constantly in pain and my speech is going. I used to be able to walk with a stick, but now I need a frame and for any long distances I use a wheelchair. I need that if I’m travelling more than 100m.”

She made contact with Tom Curran, Ms Fleming’s widower, who is now assisting Ms Tobin in raising funds to meet the significant financial costs associated with living in accommodation that meets her needs.

Mr Curran is hopeful that a bill he has written on assisted suicide will be presented to the next Dáil, and said that the Supreme Court ruling shows there is nothing to prevent the Oireachtas from legislating for assisted dying.

“Kate has no intention of bringing another court case,” said Mr Curran.

“We are trying to get it through by legislation, the Supreme Court said that there is no constitutional impediment to it.”

In April 2013 the Supreme Court said that nothing in its judgment “should be taken as necessarily implying that it would not be open to the State, in the event that the Oireachtas were satisfied that measures with appropriate safeguards could be introduced, to legislate to deal with a case such as that of the appellant”.

Ms Tobin said she remains a Catholic, but is no longer practicing as she is unable to get to a church. She was visited by a priest regularly when she lived in Waterford, prior to her move to Wexford.

Asked on what grounds she believes assisted suicide should be allowed, and where the line would be drawn, Ms Tobin acknowledges that there is opposition to euthanasia. She believes that if introduced it should be tightly regulated.

“I think each case should be judged individually by two doctors and a psychiatrist, who should judge whether or not the person is of sound mind,” she said.

However, what of the wider ideological opposition to euthanasia? What would she say to those who believe that assisted suicide is wrong because all life is sacred regardless of the conditions people may suffer?

“To the religious fanatics I would say that if I die before God is expecting me to, I don’t think he will greet me in heaven and say ‘sorry Kate, you weren’t due here yet.’

“I believe he will say ‘welcome my child, you have suffered enough’. I am doing my time in purgatory here on Earth. I am in constant pain, incontinent, and I fall five or six times a day.”