A lesbian couple have won the right to NHS treatment to help them have a baby after threatening to sue health chiefs. NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (GGC) had denied Caroline Harris and Julie McMullan IVF treatment as they were not classified as an infertile couple. The health board said it had reviewed its position in light of regulations, including the Equality Act. The women, who were suing the health board for treatment costs, said they had not yet been offered a settlement. The couple were claiming £20,000 after unsuccessful private fertility treatment, which followed them being refused NHS help. They had taken their case to the Court of Session in Edinburgh and a judicial review of the decision was due to take place at a later date. The health board at first stood by its refusal, but it has now agreed to offer the couple treatment at an assisted conception unit.
Legal guidelines aimed at clarifying the law on assisted suicide will not be prepared in Scotland. The director of public prosecutions in England and Wales has spelled out a range of factors to be taken into account when deciding on cases. However, Scotland's top law officer, Lord Advocate Elish Angiolini, said it would be inappropriate for her to publish detailed guidance. Ms Angiolini said the legal landscape in Scotland was different. In response to a letter from Liberal Democrat MSP Jeremy Purvis, Ms Angiolini said the statutory offence of assisted suicide did not exist in Scotland. However, she said involvement in a suicide might amount to homicide and that was up to Scotland's "different system" of public prosecution to determine.
The Labour party is urging the Scottish parliament to take action to standardise IVF provision across Scotland, after Labour MSP Jackie Baillie discovered wide disparities in provision between the 11 Scottish NHS boards. Ms Baillie contacted all of the boards after having been approached by a constituent who was upset about the length of IVF waiting lists where they lived.
A powerful arthritis drug, judged too expensive for patients in England and Wales, has been approved in Scotland. The National Institute of Clinical Excellence (Nice) provisionally ruled that Tocilizumab was too costly for NHS patients south of the border. However, the body's Scottish equivalent has recommended patients in Scotland be treated with the drug.
A woman who found out she had HIV when she was pregnant with twins was infected by her boyfriend who had known he had the virus for nine years. She was among four women unaware that Mark Devereaux, 41, had the virus when they had unprotected sex with him. The 28-year-old woman chose to have an abortion after discovering she had contracted the virus. Devereaux admitted four charges of culpable and reckless conduct. Sentence was deferred for reports.
Terminally ill or severely disabled patients as young as 16 will be able to seek help to end their lives in Scotland under proposals to make the country the first in the UK to legalise assisted suicide. Margo MacDonald, the independent MSP, today unveiled a Bill that she hopes will allow those whose lives have become intolerable a dignified death at home. If the Bill were to be passed Scotland would become the only place in the UK where it would be legal to help someone to end their life.
A man whose girlfriend found out he had infected her with HIV when she was pregnant has been jailed for 10 years. Mark Devereaux - who also had unprotected sex with other women - had known he had the virus for nine years. The 28-year-old woman, pregnant with twins, chose to have an abortion after discovering she had HIV. Devereaux, 41, from Dundee, admitted four charges of culpable and reckless conduct dating from January 2003 to December 2008.
The abortion rate has dropped for the second year running in England and Wales, statistics show. But experts said it was still too early to say whether there was a downward trend. The total number of abortions was 189,100 in 2009 - a rate of 17.5 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44, according to the Department of Health figures. This compares to 18.2 in 2008 and comes after a general upward trend for the past 40 years which peaked in 2007. The abortion rate in Scotland also fell last year to 12.4 per 1,000.
An author who has argued for assisted suicide has been appointed adviser to the Holyrood committee scrutinising MSP Margo MacDonald's bill calling for sick people to be given the right to die. Pro-life campaigners are angered by the appointment of Alison Britton, the co-author of The Case For Assisted Suicide, to her position as the committee's only adviser and sought assurances that she will be impartial. If passed by the parliament, MacDonald's highly emotive bill could see terminally ill or permanently physically incapable people deciding to end their lives legally. Gordon Macdonald of the pressure group Care Not Killing has written to Ross Finnie, the Lib Dem MSP who chairs the End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill Committee, to express his concerns. "Alison Britton co-authored with Prof Sheila McLean, a book entitled The Case For Physician Assisted Suicide and a report titled Sometimes a Small Victory," Macdonald said.
An attempt to change the law in Scotland to help terminally ill people end their lives has been heavily defeated in the Scottish Parliament. The End of Life Assistance Bill was proposed by the MSP Margo MacDonald, who has Parkinson’s disease, but was rejected by 85 votes to 16. It would have made it legal to help someone over the age of 16 years who is terminally ill or permanently incapacitated to take their own life. It follows a detailed examination of the issue by the Scottish parliament, which set up a special committee to investigate the proposal. It took evidence from doctors, religious groups, and legal experts from around the world including Oregon and the Netherlands where physician assisted suicide has been legalised.
Police are trying to establish the circumstances surrounding the death of a Glasgow man whose mother took him to a Swiss clinic to die. Helen Cowie told BBC Scotland's Call Kaye show she helped her son Robert, 33, commit suicide after he was left paralysed from the neck down. Mrs Cowie, of Cardonald, Glasgow, said her son went to Dignitas in October and "had a very peaceful ending". Strathclyde Police said they were not investigating the death at this time. However, a spokesman added: "The matter is being given consideration in an effort to establish the circumstances." Mrs Cowie said her son was paralysed in a swimming accident three years ago.
Dr Iain Kerr came under fire from Sir Graeme Catto, a former president of the General Medical Council (GMC) which registers UK doctors and now chairman of Dignity in Dying – a group which wants to give the terminally ill the option of killing themselves. Sir Graeme, who lives in Aberdeen, said he disapproved of the help Dr Kerr gave to elderly patients who were intent on suicide. Dr Kerr, who was a GP at Williamwood Medical Centre in Clarkston, East Renfrewshire, confessed to supplying sleeping tablets to a couple who wanted to end their lives together. He also revealed he had advised another pensioner how to use anti-depressants he was taking to kill himself and visited the patient while they took effect. Sir Graeme said: "Dignity in Dying is an organisation that is committed to working within the law to change the law. We simply do not condone healthcare professionals from medicine or nursing or any other group taking matters into their own hands. In Iain Kerr's case that is w...
He is not a typical campaigner. But behind his quiet manner is such a firm belief that assisted suicide should be legalised in Scotland that he has taken the extraordinary step of describing how as a GP he helped patients who wanted to end their lives. He did not embark on his medical career to do this. Instead, he said, he formed his views through reading and experience with patients over the years. Surprisingly he said Dame Cicely Saunders, credited with founding the hospice movement, made an impression on him early on. Dr Kerr, an atheist, is a volunteer driver for a hospice today. He said: "Cicely Saunders noticed doctors and nurses actually spent much less time with people with a terminal diagnosis and these people became more isolated as their needs increased. I think I was for a long time aware of the appropriateness of doctors discussing end-of-life issues or at least giving patients an opportunity to raise the subject."