Guernsey politician suggests assisted suicide for ‘considerable savings’ to taxpayers

A politician from the British channel island of Guernsey is pushing for assisted suicide to be legalized said it would save the local government money.

Lester Queripel told the Health & Social Care Committee that Guernsey is suffering from financial problems… and assisted suicide could help them save money. Claiming they need to save a million pounds per year in spending, he argued that “considerable savings could be realised if assisted dying was to be introduced here in the island.”

Queripel further asked the committee how many people had been kept alive over the past five years when they could have died instead, questioning how much medication, staffing, and treatment had cost taxpayers.

Yet his proposal was strongly condemned — though the board said they support assisted suicide, speaking about it from a financial perspective was distasteful.

READ: New Canadian report touts government health care cost savings from assisted suicide

“From a HSC perspective, consideration of assisted dying should be from the core principles of health, dignity and pain management,” HSC President Al Brouard said. “HSC considers that discussing such an important and emotive subject through an economic or financial lens is inappropriate. The committee does not support the terminology being used in this question. Our goal is to support people to have a dignified death, free from avoidable distress and suffering, and it does not count or evaluate patient experience in this way.”

Other assisted suicide advocates complained that Queripel’s words harm the assisted suicide movement. Still, Queripel doesn’t regret his words.

“They keep on saying they need to make savings, so I put in a simple question,” he said. “They say we need to look at everything, so this is the next logical step. Many people don’t want to keep on living and I think we need to put a figure on that.”

In 2018, Guernsey rejected the legalization of assisted suicide, while another channel island, Jersey, is moving towards legalization by 2025. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and obviously HSC has no will to do this work,” Queripel complained. “Jersey are ahead of us and so are many other places. This is an issue that won’t go away.”