Hospital cleared after obeying suicidal wish

LONDON — A coroner has ruled that staff members of a hospital in eastern England are not to blame for the death of a woman who swallowed antifreeze and asked doctors to not save her — prompting a group to argue that people should not be allowed to refuse medical treatment.

Two years ago, Kerrie Wooltorton, 26, poisoned herself and called paramedics. She gave medical staff a note known as a “living will” saying she wanted to be in a hospital to avoid dying alone but did not wish to be saved.

Doctors at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital discussed the case and decided they were legally obliged to comply with her wishes.

Coroner William Armstrong ruled at an inquest Oct. 2 that Wooltorton fully understood the consequences of refusing treatment and that the medical staff was not to blame for her death.
Living wills have been legally recognized since 2005 under an English law that allows adults to refuse treatment in certain circumstances. It is commonly used by patients who are terminally ill and want to refuse treatment.

Doctors are allowed to disregard living wills from people who have been treated for mental illness, but Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital said in a statement that Wooltorton was fully aware of what she was doing.

The British advocacy group ProLife Alliance said the case showed the law should not recognize living wills at all.

“There are big dangers to this law,” said chairwoman Dominica Roberts. “What do you do if you get a young person devastated by a relationship breakup making a living will to commit suicide? It puts doctors in an impossible position.”

The inquest into Wooltorton’s death came a few days after England’s top prosecutor unveiled new guidelines that could decriminalize many forms of assisted suicide. Director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer said most people who help close friends or family kill themselves aren’t likely to face charges.

Starmer was forced to publish detailed guidance for prosecutors after Debbie Purdy, a 46-year-old with multiple sclerosis, sued to force the government to disclose under what circumstances it would press charges against those who help others kill themselves.

Purdy said she feared that her husband could be prosecuted if he helped her go to a Swiss suicide clinic, and said she needed the guidance so that she could know whether to go abroad before her condition prevented her from traveling by herself.

More than 100 Britons reportedly have ended their lives at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland, but no one in Britain has been prosecuted for helping them get there. 

In opposing her request, the ProLife Alliance Web site had stated: “Of course if it is declared that in practice terminally ill or permanently disabled people who are mentally capable can get help to commit suicide abroad, the next step will be to argue that many people are physically or financially unable to travel, and that assisted suicide should be allowed here. Debbie Purdy is one of a tiny number of determined people who might become unable to commit suicide unaided when they wish. However sympathetic one may be to these few, there are enormous numbers who would be put at risk by a change in the law. Groups representing disabled people, in Britain and throughout the world, are strongly opposed to legalising any form of assisted suicide or euthanasia.”

Britain’s highest court ruled in Purdy’s favor in August.