Self-confessed GP killer struck off

[Chil1234]

Unlike Harold Shipman, Dr Howard Martin was acquitted of murder but has been struck off the medical register for deliberately speeding up the deaths of terminally ill patients.

This case shows how fine the acceptable line is between alleviating suffering through palliative care and deliberately hastening death. It highlights how easy it is for one man's 'mercy killing' to prove to be plain old-fashioned 'killing'

I'm not a supporter of euthanasia as a principle. But even if I was, I think this case would throw up a lot of awkward questions.

Not least because the son of one of the "mercy killed" is being interviewed and stating neither he, nor his father (and presumably none of the surrounding family) wished his father to be "mercy killed". That they were waiting to take his father to hospital, and the doctor insisted on giving his father an injection to make his journey to hospital more comfortable.

If nothing else, it raises questions about how we perceive the value of the life of the elderly and the ill.

I think if someone "mercy killed" me without my consent, and admitted they'd done it, I'd be disappointed that it wasn't considered murder.

I think it proves the need to have a vote and legislation. I do support euthanasia (voluntary of course) and know that a lot of people do. However, without the public being able to vote on this issue it will carry on happening illegally. Obvioulsy this doctor was wrong to decided himself who died, but it does give you pause for thought.

agree with animula and Riven. Absolutely disgusted by this "doctor"

One of the people he gave an overdose to at the end of his life was his own son. He did it to alleviate his suffering as he died.

My understanding is that he gave an overdose to people who were going to die in a matter of hours, simply hastening their death, and reducing the length of their possible suffering.

I know it's a very dodgy area, but I think he showed compassion - at least, from what I understand of the situation.

I saw my father suffering as he died.

how did he know they were going to die?
How do we know if this "doctor" was mentally sound?

Agree with Riven: it would be very easy to decide that somebody's life wasn't worth living. Not only that, it would be very easy for elderly and poorly relatives to end up in a state where they felt it their duty to ask for a mercy killing as they were a burden on everybody.

I find these quotes from the man himself pretty chilling:

Dr Martin told the Telegraph that, in two "cases, he hastened the deaths of patients without their permission.

"I twice helped people die, not because they wanted to die but because they had such dreadful suffering." "

followed by:

"A vet would put a dog down, but under the current system a doctor is not allowed to take positive action to help a patient in a humane way"

In other words, Dr Martin thinks people have as much ability as a dog to decide about their own lives and how much suffering is acceptable to them. Nice.

This is why I cannot support euthanasia, though I accept that there are cases where it would indeed be desirable and the lack of it is cruel. But if we did legalise it, patients would be at the mercy of people like Dr Martin.

claig
My father was struggling for every breath - his body poisoning itself. He was in serious discomfort and pain. I loved him too much to want that to continue, and if an offer of help had been there, I would have taken it.
To my mind, this is very different from a case where a judgement has to be made whether a life is worth living - my father was physically dying, not just terminally ill, and it broke my heart to see him struggle.

"My understanding is that he gave an overdose to people who were going to die in a matter of hours, simply hastening their death, and reducing the length of their possible suffering."

That's my understanding of the situation, too.
Obviously these actions can't be condoned if only to ensure that it doesn't become the start of a slippery slope.

On an individual basis, I think this doctor was acting with compassion.

I watched my mother die in prolonged agony from cancer.

Shipman took the decision to kill people. Are we just going to allow these doctors to make the decision? Ridiculous. The media is bringing these cases up more and more. Whatever happened to that BBC fellow who killed his gay lover and was interviewed about it?

Well, the enquiry seem not to have been satisfied that all the people concerned were in that much agony.

The problem is, people are going to be swayed by their own experience of watching someone who indubitably was. But this does not mean that every decision that another, totally different patient is is actually going to be right. "My relative was in unbearable pain, therefore Dr Martin has got to be right about this other patient", doesn't actually cut it logically. The chairman of the enquiry stated that: "There were many occasions when there was no clinical indication that the patient was suffering any pain." And it is worrying if, as animula says, the son of a patient who was present did not believe the injection was called for.

It could be that Dr Martin himself has particular hangups about pain and is inclined to assume that things are more unbearable than they actually are. Having had to deal (thankfully in a far less serious context) with a doctor who clearly has serious hangups about disability, I know how impossible it is to get across to sucha doctor that actually, this person (whom I know well) is not reacting in the way you would, it is not as unbearable to him, because he is not you.

Juuule
Particularly as his own son was one of his 'victims'.

Does this automatically make it right, ajand? To me, the problem is that he is imposing his own interpretation of what is unbearable pain onto someone else, and that the other doctors who checked his notes were unconvinced and that in at least one case the family did not agree.

We ask doctors to make extremely important judgements all the time and sometimes that judgement means they don't revive us against our wishes or they switch off the artificial respirator.

But we trust our doctors because we have the knowledge that their primary ethical duty in the relationship is to preserve life and alleviate suffering. Without the commitment to 'preserve life' we open the door for people like Martin to judge that we'd be better off dead.

good point Chil1234 if this was allowed to carry on in such an open blase fashion then we would lose trust in our doctors

agree with Riven

people who say "I'd rather be dead than have a serious disability" are generally either

a) melodramatic teenagers who don't know what they are saying, or

b)vacuous idiots who have no experience of disability

it's like people who say "I don't want to live past the age of 70

come back and tell me that when you are 69

this "doctor" is an arrogant sociopath

sadly he is not as unusual as we would like to think

I agree with both of the above points Greensleeves, but when someone is dying and in dreadful discomfort/pain, it is almost inhuman not to want to do something to ease their suffering.

Different situations - and I suppose, a relationship with a doctor you trust. Clearly, this wasn't the case for all of the patients or their families.

No Cory - it doesn't make it right - but it does make it highly probable that he did everything in his power to help his son - and wouldn't have done so had their been any hope of recovering.

"it is almost inhuman not to want to do something to ease their suffering."

Doctors are obliged to do everything they can to relieve suffering, even if that has the ultimate result of hastening death in a a very weak patient. That is acceptable medical practice. Martin's intention was that the patient should die and he not only administered drugs but also lied to relatives and ignored the wishes of his patients specifically to ensure that outcome - very different. Taken together that is why he has been, rightly, struck off.

Fair enough Chil - I understood that he was 'hastening death in a very weak patient'. I am interested to see that Doctors are allowed to take action that will have this effect - I didn't know that.

I'd prefer to be mercy killed.

Actually, I've already joined Exit and will be taking a short stay in Switzerland if and when I feel that the time has come.

I do feel I have a duty not to burden others.

That is my opinion and my desire.

This is why I believe the Living Will needs to be fully, legally recognised here and I support legal, assisted suicide.