A YOUNG SNP activist will make an emotional appeal to his party to back his campaign for a change in the law over assisted dying after he nursed his beloved grandmother through “insufferable pain” at the end of her life.
Josh Aaron-Mennie has submitted a proposal to the SNP’s conference to review legislation after he described seeing Mary Ryan “beg for death”.
The 26-year-old, who lives in Glasgow, sets out the harrowing experience in a supportive statement accompanying the motion now with party bosses for consideration.
“My initial interest in this policy derives from a personal experience of my family and watching my grandmother, Mary Ryan, endure through insufferable pain throughout her prolonged death,” he said.
“To support Mary’s wishes of dying at home surrounded by family, I moved in with her to provide care and support in the last days of her life when medical professionals advised she could no longer be treated for multiple organ failure and a cancerous tumour in her throat.
“Within just a few days of me moving in, medical professionals advised that she would no longer be able to eat or drink and advised, ‘people do not live longer than four days without food and water’ and ‘it is about making Mary comfortable now’.
“I wish this had been the case because my grandmother lived for 13 agonising days without sustenance, and in no way was she comfortable, despite the best efforts from carers and medical professionals who had been visiting almost hourly to provide palliative care.
“Witnessing my grandmother beg for death because of the pain she was in is something that will live with me forever, but is nothing in comparison to how my Mary felt.
“My grandmother, a devoutly religious woman of Roman Catholic denomination, would have chosen a dignified death if she had that choice. Not live (or die) through the unimaginable circumstances she endured.”
Mary, from Aberdeen, died on August 25 this year, shortly before her 85th birthday. Aaron-Mennie is proposing when someone is declared to be in palliative care and they are in excruciating pain they or their loved ones should be able to come to a solution to fulfill the person’s wish to die.
Former MSP Margo MacDonald championed measures to make it easier for doctors to help terminally ill people end their life in a dignified manner. Her attempt was defeated in Holyrood in 2010. She died, aged 70, in April 2014. Her bid was taken up in 2015 by Patrick Harvie, the Scottish Greens’ co-convener. But his Assisted Suicide Bill also failed to get through the Scottish Parliament.
The SNP conference is to take place at the end of November.
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