If you are a health care professional in Wales, you can add your name below the letter
Correspondence: Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill – safeguards needed for Welsh speakers
We are writing on behalf of a group of health care professionals, about the specific needs of Welsh speakers relating to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.
This Bill, as currently proposed, requires the coordinating doctor and the independent doctor to assess the decision-making capacity of any adult requesting assisted suicide, and to assess that the person’s decision to end their life is voluntary (free from coercion).
There is no requirement to enquire or record whether the person is a Welsh Speaker, nor a requirement to undertake the necessary assessments in Welsh.
In all cases, the coordinating doctor and the independent doctor (and any other healthcare professional involved) should be required to enquire about the person’s language preferences; English speaking healthcare professionals are often unaware of the challenges that Welsh speakers face when accessing healthcare in English.
Frequent experience demonstrates that it is not possible to confidently assess decision making capacity of a Welsh speaker in their second language (i.e. in English). Superficial conversations in English often fail to demonstrate that a Welsh speaker with significant health problems is confused or does not have a good understanding of their health condition and treatment options. The presence of confusion or lack of information may only become apparent during detailed conversation with a Welsh speaking healthcare professional.
It can be extremely challenging to detect the presence of coercion, and the nuances of family dynamics will not be apparent to a non-Welsh speaking professional, when the language spoken in the family is Welsh. Thus, it will not be possible to make any assessment of the presence or absence of coercion if the coordinating and independent doctors (and any other healthcare professionals involved in the process) have the necessary conversations in English with a Welsh speaker.
It should be apparent that these arguments apply to anyone whose first language is not English.
Thank you for taking the factors detailed above into account when debating the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, and when voting.
We would welcome the opportunity to discuss this with you in more detail. Please do let me know when we could meet with you in the coming weeks.
Yours sincerely,
Palliative Medicine Consultant,
Vale of Glamorgan
Swansea Bay UHB - Palliative Care
If you are a health care professional in Wales, please complete the form below to add your name to this open letter.
Our duty of care is a group of UK healthcare workers who oppose the intentional killing of patients by assisted suicide or euthanasia.
The campaign is administered by David Randall, a consultant nephrologist working in London, and Gillian Wright, a former palliative care doctor based in Scotland.
It is supported by a wide range of healthcare professionals, and has campaigned during the membership polls run by the Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of General Practitioners and British Medical Association to maintain medical opposition to assisted suicide. We are a campaign that is financed and administered by the Care Not Killing Alliance.
Journalists in England, Wales and Northern Ireland – please contact Alistair Thompson on 07970 162225 – [email protected]
Journalists in Scotland – please contact Tom Hamilton Communications on 07836 603977
Care NOT Killing – Promoting palliative care, opposing euthanasia and assisted suicide
A Limited Company in England and Wales, Company No. 06360578
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