Mistaken diagnosis led to me making needless plans to end it all

Daily Mail​

13-05-2025

The vote in favour of the Scottish Assisted Dying Bill at Stage 1 fills me with dread.
I know from personal experience that doctors can make serious errors and that people will die needlessly if this legislation is ultimately passed.
Any MSP who voted for the Bill today, and who ends up voting it into law in the coming months, should the Bill make further progress through its stages, must understand this.
It has been emphasised that this is a conscience issue for MSPs.
That is correct. MSPs voting for the law to change will have to satisfy their consciences and confront the distinct probability that – however inadvertently – they will almost certainly facilitate the death of people who had no reason to die.
We aren't quite there yet. Fortunately, this was a Stage 1 vote only. As the Bill sponsor and others have made clear, this vote was on the broad principles of the Bill, not all the finer detail.
I appreciate that many MSPs voted for the Bill at Stage 1 so that the debate may continue.
For many, it was qualified support only, and they may change their mind at a later date before it comes into law. I sincerely hope they do so.
Protesters outside the Scottish Parliament during the debate on the Assisted Dying Bill
Since January last year, I have been through a living nightmare after being misdiagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (MND).
In my despair on hearing the diagnosis, I immediately started planning how I could end my life before the illness took hold.
As I left the doctor's surgery following the diagnosis, I rang a friend and asked if he would come with me to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland. He reluctantly agreed.
Although I have no specialist medical knowledge, I knew enough about MND to know it is a terrifying condition.
The sufferer gradually loses all muscle strength, leading ultimately to an inability to breathe, swallow or even speak.
The Harley Street specialist I had seen referred me to one of the UK's leading neurologists for a second opinion.
He gave me a full body examination and said that he agreed. MND was confirmed.
From that moment on, all the correspondence with the hospital said my condition was MND rather than suspected MND.
He was keen that I should participate in drug trials. Rather to my shame, I declined. All drugs have side effects, and I could not face additional hardship as I prepared for death.
Being single and living alone, I could not contemplate how I would cope with the gradual physical decline. I have good friends and family but how could I ask them to deal with this?
Suicide seemed the best option – even though, as a convert to Catholicism, I realised this was against the Church's teaching.
But my initial feelings of panic and despair began slowly to recede. There were two reasons.
The first was the excellent treatment I received at the hands of the NHS. I was given a specialist nurse to contact at any time of the day or night.
I was surrounded by specialists to help me manage any problems I had with movement, breathing or swallowing.
I was sent to a palliative care doctor to discuss my end-of-life wishes, and I was contacted by social services who asked if I needed any modifications to my flat.
But the second reason was that I was not experiencing the expected symptoms of MND. Indeed, I was starting to feel slightly better.
The fasciculations had stopped and the weakness in my right hand was hardly getting worse.
Initially, the senior specialist said that MND was an unpredictable condition and that sometimes it progressed very slowly.
But by October 2024 the anomaly of my continuing good health was so great that I was sent for further nerve conductivity tests. Although these had been carried out in January, the neurologist sent me to a different specialist to repeat them.
The tests involved inserting needles in my arms and running a current through them.
The result was literally unbelievable. The doctor told me I had been misdiagnosed. I was suffering not from MND but from a mild auto- immune condition called Multifocal Motor Neuropathy which is not life-threatening and for which there are treatments available.
Ironically my sister had found reference to this milder condition back in February 2024 but the suggestion had been dismissed by the Harley Street specialist.
What lessons can be drawn from my experience in relation to the Bill that has just been approved?
The chief 'safeguard' of the Bill is that two doctors must agree that the person requesting assisted suicide must be terminally ill. This is intended to give rock-solid assurance against mistakes being made.
In my case two eminent specialists agreed that I had MND and that, in the worst case, I could have between two and six months to live. They were both wrong, but I believed them.
If I had taken them at their word, and this Bill were law, I could be dead by now. No doubt friends and acquaintances would say that I had taken a brave decision to die with dignity.
But it would have been a mistake and, once made, no further investigations would follow. I would have died needlessly.
The reality is that the Scottish assisted suicide Bill is even more dangerous than the English equivalent. As we've seen with the Leadbeater Bill south of the Border, a victory at this stage doesn't by any stretch of the imagination mean it's guaranteed to become law.
I fervently hope that it doesn't.