Scrubbing Up: Your comments

The BBC News website has a new weekly column where leading clinicians and experts outline their views on health topics.

In this week's column, Dr David Jeffrey, a palliative care specialist based at the University of Edinburgh, warns that doctors should not get involved in patients' decisions to end their lives.

He adds that patients contemplating suicide should be referred for psychiatric treatment that may prove to be a successful remedy for patients suffering from depression.

I'm a retired consultant in palliative medicine and I do believe that people should have the right to terminate their life when life expectancy is limited due to incurable illness. This right should not be based on the presence of intractable pain (and yes, even with the best that palliative care has to offer, some people still suffer a lot of pain). Distress from whatever source, be it emotional, existential or physical in a competent person should be adequate grounds to allow them the option of terminating their life at a time of their choosing.
Ian Johnson, Brighstone, Isle of Wight

There should not be a law allowing health professionals to help people die. It is an offence against, and a denial of, hope. Death is not the answer to a difficult situation.
Mark Kenny, Sheffield

As a man in my mid-60s suffering with terminal cancer it is my opinion that I should have a choice as to see things to the end or to shorten my life a little in order to ease my suffering. I will not have that choice.
John, Hayle, Cornwall

While I agree that it does place a heavy emotional burden on physicians and other medical staff to assist someone to die, I feel very strongly that if someone truly wants to die, they are not being coerced into choosing death by anyone and they completely believe that it is the best choice they can make, they should absolutely be allowed to die at a time of their own choosing.
C Anderson, Cambridge

It is sometimes impossible to separate the patient's right to die and their right to involve clinicians. If a doctor, nurse, or someone else outside the family is not legally permitted to assist, then a patient who is not in sound mind, for example with Alzheimer's, will often be obliged to live, regardless of whatever pain, indignity and suffering they are experiencing and causing their family to experience.
Joanna Marshall, Edinburgh

Try being in a situation where a loved-one is terminally ill, in pain, scared and wants help to die. The only option that human beings are given in such circumstances is to watch a loved-one suffer; if they wish to die then living is suffering. There are of course inherent problems in allowing health professionals to assist in suicide - litigation for a start - but we should not lose sight of human compassion which we exercise with ease when it comes to the suffering of animals, but not people.
Jonny, Bristol

Most people would not think twice before taking a loved pet to the vets for a lethal injection if the pet was near the end of its life and suffering. Most people would say it was a "kindness" to the animal to put it out of its pain. Why cant we adopt the same rational of thought with human life? Now I'm not saying for one moment that we should go round bumping off anyone elderly or sick who appears to be in a bit of discomfort. But picture, say, the end stage cancer patient who has weeks of pain and suffering to endure - surely he or she should be able to request assistance to end their life in a dignified way without pain and suffering.
Marty Hopkirk, Blackpool

Having just seen my father die after a 10 year struggle, and having a friend in the last stages of Alzheimer's, yes I am for the humane option. Let people go peacefully and with dignity.
George Bremer, Long Sutton

I believe there absolutely should be a law permitting heath professionals to help people die. This is a subject quite close to my heart as my father has MS. Over the last 10 years his mobility has reduced drastically. He says, and has always said, that he does not want to be a vegetable. He is a very intelligent man and copes admirably with a condition that is only going to get worse, not better. He will decide when he needs to go into a home or he will take himself to Belgium where his relatives will not be persecuted for him taking his own life. He wants quality of life, not quantity. There must be safeguards, but at the same time surely it is the patient's choice. We make the decision for animals all the time, why can't we make this decision for ourselves?
J Smith, Nuneaton

I work in an oncology hospital with patients with incurable disease. Death is part of my everyday life. I very strongly believe that doctors should not involve themselves in the business of taking a life. Doctors are here to preserve life, to make life better or if all else fails to make the natural passing of life pain-free and dignified.
Bev W, London

I believe that any person should not be forced into the position of helping or assisting another's death. However, I do believe in a person's right to choose how they die and to have that assistance as necessary from someone who is willing to assist; neither should fear prosecution.
Jon, Portsmouth

In principle, I agree totally with the idea that someone should be able to choose their time and manner of death. The ridiculous notion of suicide being a "sin" is repulsive. The problem occurs when others, such as doctors, become involved. I think a physician should be on hand to provide honest answers, for example how long will I live, how much pain could I expect, etc. After that, it is up to their individual conscience whether they actually want to assist - but the law should protect them if they do.
Graeme A Carter, Ireland

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