Jersey Doctors: ‘Assisted suicide isn’t safe and we’d never take part in it’

Doctors on Jersey have urged the Health Minister not to make assisted suicide legal.

A letter signed by 65 medics – more than 10 per cent of doctors on the island – warns that the move could see vulnerable patients coerced into ending their lives. It states:

"We are concerned about the most vulnerable members of our society who may feel coerced into a decision they would not make if the law did not permit it."

"It is very hard for clinicians to diagnose unbearable suffering or to predict time to death accurately for many conditions”.

"We will not participate should this be passed."

Dr Carol Davis, consultant in palliative medicine and founder of anti-euthanasia doctors’ group Our Duty of Care, commented:

"Legalising assisted suicide and euthanasia is a seismic legal, ethical and moral change and it carries serious risks to society and particularly its most vulnerable members."

Jersey is currently debating a change in the law and a proposition on changing the law will be debates in the States Assembly – Jersey’s parliament – on 23 November.

Health Minister Richard Renouf has said he is opposed to a change in the law based on fears as a medic and past lawyer that no amount of safeguards would guard against abuses.