City GP faces ‘euthanasia’ probe
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A Glasgow GP is facing a professional interrogation after being accused of prescribing sleeping pills to enable an elderly patient to perpetrate suicide. Dr Iain Kerr, 61, is accused by the General Medical Council (GMC) of giving the 87-year-old woman na amytal against official direction. He as well faces a further five cases of inappropriately prescribing patients the same sleeping pills. The hearing earlier the GMC’s fitness to practice panel in Manchester continues. It is alleged that Dr Kerr supplied sodium amytal to the elderly woman, known as patient A, in 1998. This was after she had expressed unhappiness with her quality of life and said she had considered suicide. He is also alleged to give birth supplied her with the drug so she should be able to conclusion her have life, should she select to do so. The hearing was told that on 1 December, 2005, Dr Kerr prescribed temazepan to the woman scorn a suspected failed self-destruction attempt deuce days before. The adult female was found dead at her plate 11 days later. She had suffered an o.d. of different drugs including temazepam. The GMC panel was likewise told that in 2004 Dr Kerr told a colleague during an appraisal that he prescribed sodium amytal to patients so they could end their own lives under the right fortune. During the hearing on Tuesday, the panel heard excerpts from a Strathclyde Police interview with Dr Kerr three years agone. It it, he admits to tattle patients that he belonged to the Euthanasia Society. He told police he lied about this “because it gives patients the choice of discussing end-of-life matters”. ‘Double effect’ During the interview, Dr Kerr said: “If people expressed anxiety about how the end would be, whether it would be painful or distressing, I would tell them I was a member of the Euthanasia Society, or had been, and pull up stakes it at that. “If they distinct that’s good news, fine, and if they ignored it I would say that’s fine as well.” He likewise explained to police the meaning of the language “double effect”. Dr Kerr said: “It’s where the doctor gives a fully grown dose of morphine and says ‘I don’t bastardly to kill the patient but they might die but I’m giving it to them to ease suffering’, that’s the philosophy of forked effect.” The GP told police he had never administered an injection to help individual die. Strathclyde Police base there was “insufficient evidence” and no further action was taken against Dr Kerr. The hearing is scheduled to run until 25 July. More information
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