A study of people aged 50 and over has revealed that the “wish to die” expressed by some participants was ultimately temporary in most cases. The research was conducted by researchers at Trinity College, Dublin.
Nearly three-quarters of participants who expressed a wish to die had changed their minds two years later, states the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing.
This finding was taken from a study of around 8,100 people aged over 50, 4 per cent of whom initially said they wished to die.
The researchers found that such a wish was usually “transient” and a result of depression and loneliness, representing a “high burden of undetected mental health problems”. And “less than one-tenth had received psychological counselling”, said Dr Robert Briggs, the study’s author.
Referring to the ongoing attempt to introduce assisted dying – the so-called “Dying with Dignity Bill” – in the Republic of Ireland, the study’s authors have called for an “enhanced focus on improving access to mental health care and addressing social isolation in older people”.
“An enhanced focus on improving access to mental health care should therefore form an important part of any discussion around assisted dying in later life”, said Dr Briggs.
Also this week, Catholic bishops in Ireland denounced the “Dying with Dignity Bill” as “a failure of compassion on the part of society”, as reported by SPUC.
The vulnerable need compassion not death
A SPUC spokesperson said: “As Professor Rose Anne Kenny, one of the authors of the study, has stated, ‘a wish to die’ is ‘closely linked with remediable factors such as loneliness and social isolation’, factors that usually go undiagnosed.
“What these decisive findings show is that a majority of vulnerable persons seeking to die will change their mind so long as they are given the chance to live and given adequate treatment.
“What assisted suicide would do, including Ireland’s Dying with Dignity Bill, is rob such souls of the time needed to come to terms with and remedy illness, loneliness and depression.
“As SPUC has stated, ‘Assisted suicide is not compassion’, but ‘a quick way out for a society that is failing in its duty of care’, especially to the elderly, who were the focus of this vital study.
“What the vulnerable need most of all is compassion and care, not a swift and needless death.”