I DISAGREE with both Dr Gordon Macdonald and Dr Finlay Kerr (Letters, October 16) over some of their reasons for being against one's right to an assisted death.

I still do not understand why my 91-year-old mother, who only went into hospital to have her medication checked, and to save the geriatric consultant the need to make a trip to Skye, and who succumbed to one of those awful "hospital-acquired infections", was kept alive sufficiently to suffer appallingly. Just enough morphine was given "to dull the pain" but which left her fighting for breath for the two weeks it took her to die.

Lung intubation, faecal vomiting, bleeding mouth, yes she had the lot and to make matters worse didn't even know who I was. This sprightly lady was tortured to death when a swift and kind ending of her suffering was so obviously needed. I had been told that she couldn't possibly survive the infection and would die. Several times, as I sat through the nights with her, I was so tempted to suffocate her, to end the torment. What a cruel and pointlessly painful end to her life. Having promised my father, before he died, that I would take care of my mother, which I did for many years, I felt heartily ashamed, and still do, at what I had witnessed in her final two weeks of life.

If such a thing is all about keeping a person alive at all costs and denying "dignity" when dying, then I utterly condemn it. As we say, "it shouldn't happen to a dog". My mother was not a dog, she was a human being and deserved better than the awful end she suffered. It was not beautiful, dignified, peaceful; it was cruel. If I could I would beg her forgiveness.

Thelma Edwards, Kelso.

GORDON Macdonald is entitled to voice his misgivings about assisted suicide, and I genuinely welcome full debate on this contentious topic. What Dr Macdonald fails to clarify is that he is not a medical doctor, and does not speak from a doctor’s perspective on this issue.

The following is a direct quote from the British Medical Journal, in a past article: "Just over half of British doctors questioned in a survey say they would welcome

a law that allows them to help terminally ill people to end their life. The survey, by the research organisation Medix UK, also found that 45%

of the 1000 doctors questioned believe their colleagues are helping terminally ill patients to die. But as the law currently stands, their actions put them at risk of life imprisonment every time. Over a quarter of the doctors surveyed (27%) said they had been asked by a patient for help to die. Altogether, 56% of doctors said they were in favour of legislation to allow assisted suicide for terminally ill patients, provided there were stringent safeguards and national guidelines."

In 2012 Professor Raymond Tallis, emeritus professor of geriatric medicine, and Chair of Healthcare Professionals for Assisted Dying, wrote: "Acting in the name of religion, a small and unrepresentative number of believers are inflicting needless suffering on others. The Catholic Church played a prominent role in the formation of Care Not Killing. Only four of the known 30 member organisations of Care Not Killing are non-religious. So much for 'a broad coalition of opinion'.”

I could give you a long list of medical professionals with similar views to Professor Tallis, but frankly you wouldn’t have enough space to print all the

names of those health professionals who support a change in the law.

Sheila Duffy, Friends at the End, Glasgow G12.

HOW would Dr Gordon Macdonald (Letters, October 16) respond to a terminally ill person who is expected to live for a few months and who after consideration has decided they would prefer not to have palliative care? The stark alternatives appear to be "thole it" or "go to Switzerland".

There are people whose unmet needs Care Not Killing's opposition to assisted suicide does nothing to relieve.

Campbell McInroy, Kirkintilloch.