50 - Twenty years of medically imposed misery

After the Supreme Court Ruling on the right-to-die case in 1995, the Irish Medical Council was deeply unhappy.

The court had ruled that keeping someone alive via gastrostomy tube feeding amounted to medical treatment, not just to care. As such, then, it could be lawfully discontinued.

A member of the Medical Council, Dr John Monaghan, speaking on his own behalf, said afterwards in an interview, published the next day, that any doctor who cooperated with this Supreme ruling may have questions to answer before the Council.

This was threatening talk. Dr Monaghan was implying that a doctor could be struck off for following Supreme Court findings. Or, put another way, the Medical Council was somehow superior to the Supreme Court of Ireland, the highest court in the land.

The effect of this ill-judged utterance was to further stress the family of The Ward, who had already gone through 20 years of medically imposed misery.

I have written an account of these events between 1975 and 1995. The book, if you're interested, is called The Foxhunter and is readily available on this website or from other online bookstores.