A pensioner who planned assisted suicide at Dignitas after being told he had just six months to live later found out that he was not terminally ill and “would have died unnecessarily”.
Peter Sefton-Williams, 72, a retired journalist, was given just six months to live after being diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (MND). He subsequently booked a visit to Dignitas in Switzerland, where he planned to take his own life.
Calling Dignitas hours after the crushing his diagnosis, he “thought, I can’t face this. I just can’t face this.”
However, Sefton-Williams cancelled his date with death months later after his illness did not develop. It later transpired that he was suffering from Multifocal Motor Neuropathy, a treatable, non-terminal autoimmune condition.
“Do you just shrug your shoulders and say, ‘Well, that’s life, mistakes happen?’ Because mistakes are going to happen, and I’m living proof of that”, Sefton-Williams said. “The lesson is that doctors make mistakes. Doctors quite frequently make mistakes.”
After being made to falsely believe that a horrible death awaited him, Sefton-William is now warning against assisted suicide bills, including a proposed law for Scotland:
“If MSPs go ahead with this bill, they have to accept that people will die unnecessarily. There will be mistakes and people will die. So is it worth it?”
The wrong diagnosis has ultimately made Sefton-Williams wary of assisted suicide laws, which are currently under consideration in the UK:
“The idea that I could have done that is absolutely horrific and the thing that most disturbs me is that nobody would have known.
“What people would have said is, ‘Peter took a brave decision. He wished to die with dignity, and that’s what he did’, and everyone would be satisfied that it had been a good outcome.
“That’s what the world would think. But it wouldn’t have been a good outcome. I would have died unnecessarily.”
Earlier this year, freedom of information requests revealed that life expectancy prognoses for patients were inaccurate, and many people lived far longer than expected. One in five terminally ill patients given six months to live was still alive three years later, according to government data.
Dr Matthew Doré of the Association for Palliative Medicine warned that, had assisted suicide been legalised in the UK, “lives would have been tragically cut short – and we would never have known.
“Can we accept a reality where one in five people might miss three more Christmases with loved ones due to the inherent uncertainty of medical prognoses?”
If you’re reading this and haven’t yet donated to SPUC, please consider helping now. Thank You!
