‘Horrendous’ assisted suicide deaths can last several hours

The Scottish Parliament has been told that some patients may take up to three hours to die from assisted suicide.

In the Health Committee’s first evidence session on Liam McArthur’s Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, the Chair of the Australian state of Victoria’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board shared his experience of the state’s assisted suicide law.

Julian Gardner reported that although death “normally occurs within 30 minutes”, it “is not deemed to be a complication if somebody takes two to three hours” to die after lapsing into a coma. In 2022 to 2023, one person in Western Australia died after 6 hours and 29 minutes.

‘Inhumane’

Dr Gordon Macdonald, Chief Executive of the UK’s leading anti-assisted suicide group Care Not Killing, said: “It’s very concerning that people can take several hours to die after taking these drugs.”

“There is evidence from Oregon in the USA, where assisted suicide has been legal for decades, that one person took an inhumane and horrendous 137 hours to die. We need a much more robust scrutiny process in the Scottish parliament.”

Under the proposals, those aged 16 or over who have been resident in Scotland for at least twelve months could get help from a medic to kill themselves if they are deemed to be terminally ill.

‘Drowned’

In 2021, a senior doctor warned that assisted suicide is “neither painless nor dignified” in light of research that drugs used in lethal injections have led to “very painful” deaths.

Dr Joel Zivot, Associate Professor of Anaesthesiology and Surgery at the Emory School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, highlighted an execution he had witnessed where the barbiturates caused a pulmonary oedema, meaning the man had “drowned in his secretions”.

He warned that “many will be in great discomfort, even if outwardly they don’t appear to be suffering”.