2,500 UK deaths per year are accelerated by doctors
Media statement
2,500
Information published in the Guardian’s article ‘Majority of doctors opposed to assisted suicide’ today states that research out tomorrow will show that one in 200 deaths, which
This British social attitudes survey of 4,000 doctors by Professor Clive Seale, from the Centre for Health Sciences, updates previous findings from 2004. Seale found that more than a third (35%) of doctors supports a change in the law to allow assisted dying for mentally competent, terminally ill adults at the end of their lives.
“It is projected that between 650 and 800 people per year in the
“The survey will further reveal that in 16.5% of cases, doctors used continuous deep sedation with patients at the end of life. This effectively means that patients are medicated to a state where they are in a coma for the last days or weeks of their lives. This figure is significantly higher than in other countries where assisted dying is legal. In the
“This research highlights the slippery slope we are currently on in this country where doctors are assisting patients to die without safeguards, and potentially without an explicit request from the patients, and makes clear the very real problem which needs to be addressed with a safeguarded
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About Dignity in Dying:
- Dignity in Dying is the leading organisation in the
UK that advocates assisted dying for terminally ill patients. - Dignity in Dying has over 100,000 supporters and receives its funding entirely from donations from the public.
- Opinion polls consistently show that at least 80% of the
UK population support a change in the law on assisted dying.
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[1] Based on the experience in