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British veteran dies by assisted suicide after NHS fails to provide him healthcare
A British veteran struggling with PTSD treatment died at an assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland after allegedly failing to receive care through the National Health Services (NHS).
Ryan Wallace served in the Bosnian war as part of a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping squad.
He was later diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and went to the NHS for help.
The NHS gave him medications to treat the PTSD, which then created agonizing physical pain, and though he begged for help, he allegedly received none.
Wallace eventually chose to undergo assisted suicide, and even told the NHS of his plans, which were ignored.
Marianne Wallace has been opening up about the death of her husband, Ryan Wallace, to which she says the NHS contributed.
In an interview with the Sunday Post, she said her husband developed PTSD after serving in the Bosnian war as a UN peacekeeper. They met afterwards, and though it was clear he was struggling with mental health, she still fell in love with him.
"He made me laugh. He was sweet and funny," she told the Daily Mail. "He always said he could talk to me, in a way that he couldn’t talk to anyone else."
He often had night terrors, once even punching her in the backside, which left him distraught, and he sought help from the NHS.
“I saw Ryan’s suffering every single day. He was diagnosed with different conditions and prescribed so many medications it was impossible to know what was accurate, what was helping, and what was making things worse," she said. “In May 2020, he was given two medications which were known to cause painful side effects – sodium valproate and lamotrigine."
Marianne said they later discovered the two drugs together can cause extreme problems:
[T]hey can react with each other and cause Stevens-Johnson syndrome, an excruciating physical reaction some patients develop after being given the drugs at the same time.
Within just a few days of being given both drugs, Ryan suffered excruciating pain in his mouth and throat. He began vomiting blood. The pain was unrelenting and continued even after he stopped taking the drugs.
Ryan Wallace continued asking the NHS for help, but they brushed it off, according to Marianne; she said his doctors thought his symptoms were all in his head.
"I was witness to the fact they weren’t," she said. "I saw the blood."
They spent tens of thousands of dollars on private treatment, trying to find a diagnosis. Eventually, he became suicidal.
“When nobody would give him answers, it became too much. He tried to barricade himself in a room and take his own life," she said. “I almost had to break down the door to get to him. It was the most terrifying experience of my life.”
As he became suicidal, Wallace told NHS staffers he wanted to go to Switzerland to undergo assisted suicide. It wasn't taken seriously, according to Marianne.
"Even when he told them he wanted to die – and was planning to die – he wasn’t taken seriously," she said. "Once, a psychiatric nurse said 'you’re very chatty for someone who is suicidal.'"
Wallace paid the £15,000 to go to the Athanasios Clinic in Switzerland, which does not require a terminal diagnosis, and began selling all of his belongings.
"He told me that he’d decided the only way forward for us was for him to end his life – so I could live mine," she said. All the while, the couple was reaching out to the NHS, e-mails which the Daily Mail reported it had seen.
The Sunday Post reported Wallace's final words, in which he reported the agony he had been suffering, and the lack of help he received from the NHS:
There is a little shred of hope that the NHS will finally do the right thing. Right up until the last minute I will try and hold out that hope. But I know I cannot continue to live like this. I cannot continue to let Marianne live with this nightmare.
I don’t believe the NHS is taking me seriously. I keep asking how serious it has to get before they do.
Wallace ordered an urn for himself and tried to get Marianne to move on without him.
"[The urn] arrived before he left for Switzerland," Marianne said. "He wanted to place it in the garden. I said, 'No, Ryan, please, no,' but he just wanted to make it easier for me. At one point I found him researching puppies. He thought I should get one, to keep me company when he was gone. I said, 'I don’t want a puppy, Ryan. I want you, alive.'"
She drove him to the airport, hoping he would be stopped or that he would change his mind.
"I was crying, saying, 'You can still change your mind,'" she said of their last phone conversation. "Two of his sisters said goodbye, but the third couldn’t do it."
Marianne had to call the clinic to find out if he died.
"I had to email to ask if Ryan had gone through with it. And even then it was a full day-and-a-half before I got a reply," she said. "I just cried and cried. I feel I let him down. In reality, the system let him down. I believe he was failed by the NHS."
Ryan's ashes were sent to her through the mail.
She is now asking for a review to be conducted into Wallace's treatment at the NHS, with the support of Scottish Conservative Shadow Health Secretary Miles Briggs.
"This is a tragic, shocking case. If Ryan had died in Scotland there would be an automatic Serious Adverse Event Review (SAER) to examine what happened," Briggs said. “I am calling on NHS Forth Valley to do the right thing and conduct an open and transparent review as a matter of urgency, involving Ryan’s widow, so they can learn from this tragedy.”
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·British veteran dies by assisted suicide after NHS fails to provide him healthcare
A British veteran struggling with PTSD treatment died at an assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland after allegedly failing to receive care through the National Health Services (NHS).
Ryan Wallace served in the Bosnian war as part of a United Nations (UN) peacekeeping squad.
He was later diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and went to the NHS for help.
The NHS gave him medications to treat the PTSD, which then created agonizing physical pain, and though he begged for help, he allegedly received none.
Wallace eventually chose to undergo assisted suicide, and even told the NHS of his plans, which were ignored.
Marianne Wallace has been opening up about the death of her husband, Ryan Wallace, to which she says the NHS contributed.
In an interview with the Sunday Post, she said her husband developed PTSD after serving in the Bosnian war as a UN peacekeeper. They met afterwards, and though it was clear he was struggling with mental health, she still fell in love with him.
"He made me laugh. He was sweet and funny," she told the Daily Mail. "He always said he could talk to me, in a way that he couldn’t talk to anyone else."
He often had night terrors, once even punching her in the backside, which left him distraught, and he sought help from the NHS.
“I saw Ryan’s suffering every single day. He was diagnosed with different conditions and prescribed so many medications it was impossible to know what was accurate, what was helping, and what was making things worse," she said. “In May 2020, he was given two medications which were known to cause painful side effects – sodium valproate and lamotrigine."
Marianne said they later discovered the two drugs together can cause extreme problems:
[T]hey can react with each other and cause Stevens-Johnson syndrome, an excruciating physical reaction some patients develop after being given the drugs at the same time.
Within just a few days of being given both drugs, Ryan suffered excruciating pain in his mouth and throat. He began vomiting blood. The pain was unrelenting and continued even after he stopped taking the drugs.
Ryan Wallace continued asking the NHS for help, but they brushed it off, according to Marianne; she said his doctors thought his symptoms were all in his head.
"I was witness to the fact they weren’t," she said. "I saw the blood."
They spent tens of thousands of dollars on private treatment, trying to find a diagnosis. Eventually, he became suicidal.
“When nobody would give him answers, it became too much. He tried to barricade himself in a room and take his own life," she said. “I almost had to break down the door to get to him. It was the most terrifying experience of my life.”
As he became suicidal, Wallace told NHS staffers he wanted to go to Switzerland to undergo assisted suicide. It wasn't taken seriously, according to Marianne.
"Even when he told them he wanted to die – and was planning to die – he wasn’t taken seriously," she said. "Once, a psychiatric nurse said 'you’re very chatty for someone who is suicidal.'"
Wallace paid the £15,000 to go to the Athanasios Clinic in Switzerland, which does not require a terminal diagnosis, and began selling all of his belongings.
"He told me that he’d decided the only way forward for us was for him to end his life – so I could live mine," she said. All the while, the couple was reaching out to the NHS, e-mails which the Daily Mail reported it had seen.
The Sunday Post reported Wallace's final words, in which he reported the agony he had been suffering, and the lack of help he received from the NHS:
There is a little shred of hope that the NHS will finally do the right thing. Right up until the last minute I will try and hold out that hope. But I know I cannot continue to live like this. I cannot continue to let Marianne live with this nightmare.
I don’t believe the NHS is taking me seriously. I keep asking how serious it has to get before they do.
Wallace ordered an urn for himself and tried to get Marianne to move on without him.
"[The urn] arrived before he left for Switzerland," Marianne said. "He wanted to place it in the garden. I said, 'No, Ryan, please, no,' but he just wanted to make it easier for me. At one point I found him researching puppies. He thought I should get one, to keep me company when he was gone. I said, 'I don’t want a puppy, Ryan. I want you, alive.'"
She drove him to the airport, hoping he would be stopped or that he would change his mind.
"I was crying, saying, 'You can still change your mind,'" she said of their last phone conversation. "Two of his sisters said goodbye, but the third couldn’t do it."
Marianne had to call the clinic to find out if he died.
"I had to email to ask if Ryan had gone through with it. And even then it was a full day-and-a-half before I got a reply," she said. "I just cried and cried. I feel I let him down. In reality, the system let him down. I believe he was failed by the NHS."
Ryan's ashes were sent to her through the mail.
She is now asking for a review to be conducted into Wallace's treatment at the NHS, with the support of Scottish Conservative Shadow Health Secretary Miles Briggs.
"This is a tragic, shocking case. If Ryan had died in Scotland there would be an automatic Serious Adverse Event Review (SAER) to examine what happened," Briggs said. “I am calling on NHS Forth Valley to do the right thing and conduct an open and transparent review as a matter of urgency, involving Ryan’s widow, so they can learn from this tragedy.”
Live Action News is pro-life news and commentary from a pro-life perspective.
Our work is possible because of our donors. Please consider giving to further our work of changing hearts and minds on issues of life and human dignity.
Contact editor@liveaction.org for questions, corrections, or if you are seeking permission to reprint any Live Action News content.
Guest Articles: To submit a guest article to Live Action News, email editor@liveaction.org with an attached Word document of 800-1000 words. Please also attach any photos relevant to your submission if applicable. If your submission is accepted for publication, you will be notified within three weeks. Guest articles are not compensated (see our Open License Agreement). Thank you for your interest in Live Action News!
Joanna Calhoun
·International
Joanna Calhoun
·Activism
Angeline Tan
·Human Interest
Angeline Tan
·International
Angeline Tan
·Politics
Bridget Sielicki
·Pop Culture
Cassy Cooke
·Politics
Cassy Cooke
·Analysis
Cassy Cooke
·Analysis
Cassy Cooke
·Politics
Cassy Cooke
·