Assisted dying campaigner tells MPs ‘sympathy only goes so far’ in heartbreaking plea

A man whose father, brother and sister died “in dreadful circumstances” has told MPs their sympathy “only goes so far” as he urged them to get on with legalising .

Pat Malone made the statement after MP Danny Kruger, who is opposed to the Bill going through Parliament, offered his sympathies and said he was “very sorry to be fighting against you in this matter”.

Mr Malone said his father had “asked me to help him kill himself” while he suffered with in hospital aged 85, something he “obviously” was not able to do.

Mr Malone’s brother, who also ended up with pancreatic cancer, died by suicide while his sister, who had , went to Dignitas in Switzerland for an assisted death.

He told MPs: “In all three cases, it [a law in the UK] would have improved their lives and their deaths.”

He said all three had died “in dreadful circumstances”, noting that his brother’s family had been questioned by police about his death, while his sister “died 1,000 miles from home [when] she should have died in her house with her family, and her dogs on the bed”.

MPs on the committee tasked with scrutinising Kim Leadbeater’s Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill were taking evidence for a third day. Later in the session, Mr Malone spoke of his brother’s case, in which a coroner had concluded he died by suicide.

He said: “The coroner was very sympathetic. Danny Kruger is very sympathetic. But sympathy only goes so far, and I’m glad that this committee is now looking exactly at the people who matter in this issue, the people who matter first in this issue, who cannot be here to talk for themselves.”

Mr Malone accepted his sister would not have been eligible under the current Bill but he did not want to suggest changes to the proposed legislation as this could result in delays.

He said: “You’ve moved mountains to get to this point, and the last thing in the world I’d want to do is pile more requirements on this Bill.

“I’d like to see some stuff stripped out of it, actually, to make it easier. But I’m not going to ask for that, because we desperately need to get away from the status quo, and this Bill gets us away from the status quo.”

The committee has questioned some 50 witnesses over the three days, as MPs prepare to scrutinise every line of the legislation.

Australian witnesses included .

He said politicians had changed the law there after reports from coroners, police officers and paramedics of “cruel and lonely” suicides among terminally ill people.

Describing the state’s voluntary assisted dying service as “an important form of suicide prevention”, he explained that being directed to a doctor meant patients could access social help or palliative care which may stop them trying to end their life.

Those who want it can also access a “death that is better than otherwise their illness would provide”, Mr Greenwich said.

Dr Chloe Furst, a geriatrician and palliative care doctor in South Australia, told MPs the medications used in assisted dying were “completely effective”.

She said patients were heavily sedated within a couple of minutes and 95% died within half an hour.

Dr Furst said there was some resistance from palliative care medics when the law first changed but now it has been widely “embraced”. She added: “Everyone has generally shifted to see this as part of patient choice.”