Parkinson's sufferer committed to psych ward for planning his death

June 18, 2016

A former high-flying marketing executive living with Parkinson’s disease has told how he was committed to a psychiatric hospital for trying to plan his own death writes Caroline O’Doherty. 

Cartan Finegan, 86, says it is time for a full debate about assisted suicide but he says the medical profession is “scared stiff” of controversy over the issue.

He urges the Government to tackle the subject and says as a first step, they should schedule Dáil debate time on the Dying With Dignity Bill.

Mr Finegan, who is currently living in a nursing home in south Co Dublin, said he had decided last year that he no longer wished to live with Parkinson’s which has robbed him of much of his mobility and speech and is doing increasing damage to his memory.

When he asked a family member abroad to help him, however, his worried relative contacted the health services, which set in train a chain of events culminating in gardaí arriving at his door and his involuntary detention in a psychiatric ward.

“I began to consider euthanasia because I had witnessed persons being kept alive when they would have preferred to die,” he said.

“Although I firmly believe in the right of an individual to have the option of ending their life, I am also aware that this option carries legal consequences.”

He said his situation highlighted the dilemma “between the person who believes there should be a right to terminate their life and the legal profession that is constrained by law to adopt a certain course, and medical professions who are scared stiff of public controversy, irrespective of what they may believe warrants attention and change”.

Mr Cartan, who worked for Bord Bainne, CIÉ and other state bodies, and was integral to the success of the internationally recognised Kerrygold brand, chronicled his experiences in My Last Hurrah! — a collection of writings he compiled last year for family and friends.

He decided to bring them to wider pubic attention following disclosures in this newspaper by Tom Curran, the partner of the late right- to-die campaigner, Marie Fleming, that he had helped her die according to her wishes and had also helped around 200 other terminally ill people prepare plans to end their lives at a time of their choosing.

This article first appeared in the Irish Examiner.

http://health.einnews.com/article/331555105/IQQzFFT-M-TDRf6_