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PRESS RELEASE, 9th July 2002

VITAL DISTINCTION BLURRED IN OFFICIAL DEATH NOTICE

Commenting on today's report 'that a decision in the High Court would allow a 38-year-old “PVS" patient’s so-called “life support”’ to be ended, Dr. Richard Lamerton, a Hospice doctor, said "What exactly does this mean?

"If they are talking about taking someone off a ventilator, this is a purely medical decision and Judge Butler-Sloss should not be interfering in it.

"If it is food and fluid that are going to be withdrawn it is a very different matter.  We don't want doctors being allowed to starve people to death."

Mrs. E. Chowdharay-Best, Hon Secretary of ALERT added: "Patients diagnosed as 'PVS' are lucky in that doctors are still supposed to go to court before imposing death by dehydration on them.  Victims of a severe stroke, on the other hand, may be condemned to death quite informally, as was shown on Channel 4 TV last February 14th, when an elderly man's hydration was stopped.

"He clung to life for ten days."

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