Mrs Kelly Taylor, a 30-year-old terminally ill woman from Bristol, has begun a personal legal action for medical assistance to relieve her suffering following refusal by her cardiologist, palliative care consultant and GP to increase her medication to a level that would relieve her symptoms and result in her entering into a deep sedation.
The first step in this legal process was on
12th February 2007 at a
Directions hearing at the
High Court Family Division where a judge ordered a full hearing should take place during March/April this year. The purpose of the hearing is to allow Kelly to receive at home, sufficient morphine pain relief so that she no longer feels the pain of her symptoms. The effect of the morphine treatment if given in sufficient quantity is likely to mean that she will become unconscious. At that point, her advance directive would result in all life-prolonging treatment and artificial hydration and nutrition being withdrawn.
Kelly’s lawyer,
Richard Stein, Leigh Day & Co, said
“Her doctors have a duty to provide her with adequate pain control even where it shortens her life. The case is expected to focus on whether increasing the morphine dose can be justified in this way or whether it amounts to an assisted death. We have advised our client that she is entitled to seek this treatment and that it is unlawful for doctors to deny it to her unless they also take steps to find a doctor willing to provider it for her.”
Deborah Annetts, chief executive of Dignity in Dying said:
“Mrs Taylor spoke to me and said that she wants her suffering to end. She told me: ‘This is about the quality of my life. I sleep 18 hours a day and I have terrible nightmares as a result of my medication. I am in constant pain, suffer from breathlessness and have bed sores. I do not want to have to leave the UK in order to die or to risk dreadful legal consequences for my husband if he was to try to help me die."
For more information please contact
Richard Stein on 020 7650 1200
Information was correct at time of publishing. See terms and conditions for further details.