Allowing people to seek help from medics to kill themselves will save Guernsey money, a local politician has suggested.
Deputy Lester Queripel urged the Health & Social Care Committee (HSC) to consider legalising assisted suicide as a solution to the States’ public finance deficit.
In 2018, Guernsey’s parliament voted emphatically against a series of pro-assisted suicide proposals and determined to improve end-of-life care.
Cost of living
According to the Guernsey Press, Queripel asked the HSC to disclose the total cost to taxpayers of providing care for people who wished to die over the last five years.
The Deputy suggested to the HSC that “considerable savings could be realised if assisted dying was to be introduced here in the island”.
Seeking to justify his position, he told the newspaper: “Many people don’t want to keep on living and I think we need to put a figure on that.”
Rebuke
HSC President Al Brouard responded: “Our goal is to support people to have a dignified death, free from avoidable distress and suffering, and it does not count or evaluate patient experience in this way.”
In November 2021, Jersey’s States Assembly became the first Parliament in the British Isles to agree in principle that assisted suicide and euthanasia should be permitted.
If legislation is passed by its elected members, assisted suicide and euthanasia could be available in Jersey before the end of 2025.
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