Dignity in death

I found the letter from Drs Jeffrey and Fallon (18 April) profoundly depressing but at least it gave an insight into the inflexible and ideological stance of those who are implacably opposed to Margo MacDonald’s Bill.

In the early years of my long ministry, death was usually a peaceful process, with the family confident that attending medical staff would make every effort to combat pain and ease the final passage of the loved one.

Later in my career, as paranoia descended on the domain, I would sit beside the beds of parishioners in busy, anonymous wards as they lived out their final days in the grossest indignity and suffering.

In scenes too harrowing to describe I would long for a kindly medic to put an end to the nightmare but they would not even prescribe sufficient pain killers because they feared for their careers in the subsequent inquisitorial post-mortem.

The opposition from the churches comes from a Catholic hierarchy and Kirk committees far removed from the present scene but there is not a nurse or a family with a loved one who died in extremis who does not recognise what I have described.

(Rev Dr) John Cameron

Howard Place

St Andrews