Assisted Dying Bill [HL]

Lord Ramsbotham Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 22nd October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lady Meacher on bringing forward this Bill. I make no apologies for focusing entirely on my wife, who took her own life recently after a horrendous year. Having broken her hip in a fall, she fell again in the street and was called in by the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for a scan, which was misdiagnosed as showing that she had an aggressive brain tumour. For that she was put on an end-of-life care plan by Royal Trinity Hospice and given limited time to live.

When she had not died within that time, she demanded a second scan, which showed that, far from being aggressive, she had a non-aggressive, non-cancerous growth on the membrane of her brain. Because she had been in bed for so long, she had temporarily lost the use of her legs. She learned to walk again using aids but, having got downstairs, fell heavily, because she tried to walk about without them. She expressed a wish to die several times, even to doctors, finding the frustration hard to bear. This setback proved too much even for her, and she took an overdose of sleeping pills, much to the sorrow of her family and friends. I therefore strongly support the Bill.