Source, Scotsman online.

MS sufferer: 'I want to die with dignity, this is cruel'

Published Date: 26 December 2008
By BRIAN FERGUSON
A SEVERELY disabled woman suffering from an incurable condition of the nervous system yesterday issued a heartfelt plea for the right to die.




Val Mackay, from Perth, has not left her house for three years, spends 22 hours a day in bed, and can do very little without the help of carers.

After being diagnosed with a form of multiple sclerosis (MS) five years ago, she soon became bed-ridden and was unable feed herself without assistance.

The 51-year-old has now backed the campaign by Scottish Parliament member Margo MacDonald, which aims to legalise assisted suicide in Scotland.

"This is no life, lying here, dependent on everybody for everything," said Ms Mackay from her bed at the specially-adapted house she has lived in for the past few years.

"There's no point keeping me alive. I think society should change. I know there should be stringent rules and procedures followed. But there are people like me and thousands of others, who want to die with some dignity. This is cruel."

MS, a disease in which the immune system mistakenly attacks and damages sheaths that protects nerve cells, can cause symptoms ranging from vague tingling to blindness and paralysis. It affects one in every 500 people in Scotland – the highest proportion in the world – and nearly 100,000 across the UK.

Ms MacDonald, an independent MSP who has Parkinson's disease, unveiled a bid to propose a new law to legalise assisted suicide in October.

She has argued a number of recent cases have highlighted the need for new laws, including that of MS sufferer Debbie Purdy, from Bradford, who lost a landmark legal bid to secure assurances that her husband would not be prosecuted if he helped her travel abroad to die in Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legal.

Ms Mackay said: "Why should I have to go to a foreign country to die? I would rather be helped to die in my own house."

Ms Mackay has the progressive form of the illness, shared by only 15 per cent of MS sufferers, which steadily worsens.

A few months after being diagnosed with the illness in 2003, she had to give up her job as an account supervisor, lost her house and her relationship came to an end.

Ms Mackay can now hardly walk, cannot get out of bed without the help of a hoist, can hardly use her hands and is going blind. She lives in adapted accommodation and is reliant on carers to look after her.

Her family understands what she is going through and supports her wish to die, she said. Her son Robert Turner, 29, his wife Michelle, and two grandchildren Matthew, eight, and Daniel, two, live nearby.

She said: "They obviously don't want to lose me but they understand as well. It must be awful, especially for my son, because we were on our own for so long. It must be awful watching your mum die."

She added: "I know that I am capable of making up my own mind that I don't want to be here. Why keep me alive?"