A British woman with a severe case of Crohn’s disease has made a reservation with a Swiss euthanasia clinic, where she will pay them £10,000 ($12,000) in order to end her life.
She said she was driven to the choice after the government reneged on its promises to provide vital health care under the United Kingdom’s national health insurance program.
Fifty-four-year-old Marie Lopez has suffered from Crohn’s disease for more than 30 years. In her application to the Lifecircle clinic in Basil, which accepts only the most serious cases for euthanasia, she argued that her disease is “incurable and progressive.”
Promised services never appeared
Approximately 10 years ago, British politicians made drastic cuts to the amount of in-home assistance available to people with chronic illness. Rather than the 38 hours of help formerly provided each week, Lopez’s allotment was slashed back to seven. As a consequence, her health has dramatically deteriorated in the ensuing decade.
“Independent living in Britain is one of the biggest cons going. I paid 40 percent tax in the U.K. for more than 20 years, but when I fell ill, there was no real help,” Lopez said.
Lopez said her case shows what happens when vital services are cut.
“The cuts [to services] are killing people and I do not want anyone else to suffer the way I have,” she said. “This is not something I am doing on a whim or as a protest. Social services are not responsible for my illness or my full decision to die, but their actions, policies, and the stress caused encouraged me to do it early.”
Lopez’s case has taken on a particular significance as British politicians are currently debating even further cuts to medical care.
Two British courts recently ruled that the government needs to expand the services provided under the Personal Independence Payment program, which provides a stipend to the disabled and chronically ill to help them cover the extra costs of living imposed by their health problems. According to the disability nonprofit organization Scope, these costs average £550 ($670) per month. These extra costs are a major reason that people with disabilities are twice as likely to live in poverty as people without disabilities.
In response to the ruling, politicians drafted up a law to cut £3.7 billion ($4.5 billion) in PIP payments to 160,000 people. A senior advisor to the prime minister recently created a scandal when he said that only “really disabled people” should be able to get the assistance that their taxes have paid for.
Treat Crohn’s naturally
The real tragedy of Lopez’s case is that if properly treated, Crohn’s disease does not need to be fatal.
Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis are the most common forms of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which affects up to 20 percent of people in the Western world at some point in their lives. IBD is characterized by intermittent flare-ups of intense abdominal pain, bloating, cramps, gas, and constipation or diarrhea. Crohn’s in particular most commonly manifests with painful swelling and diarrhea in the lower part of the small intestine (the ileum).
Crohn’s is believed to be an autoimmune disorder, perhaps related to dysfunction in the way the immune system reacts to intestinal bacteria. It also has a significant genetic component.
Though there is no officially accepted cure or way to prevent flare-ups, a study published in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology in December 2016 scientifically demonstrated for the first time that a highly specific diet, known as the specific carbohydrate diet, can cause complete remission of symptoms for many pediatric IBD patients.
“For decades or longer, medicine has said diet doesn’t matter, that it doesn’t impact disease,” researcher and gastroenterologist David Suskind said. “Now we know that diet does have an impact, a strong impact. It works, and now there’s evidence.”
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