Dear Sir,

It is chilling to think that a government advisor on caring for the elderly, Martin Green, has voiced his support for the legalisation of 'assisted suicide', and disturbing that his grasp of medical ethics is so slack as to believe that it is "wholly consistent" with giving people '"choice"' that it should '"extend to whether or not they want to die"' ('Call to legalise assisted suicide', Telegraph, August 29, 2011). Indeed he argues, because equality laws mean the disabled are "entitled to support" that this "support should extend to assistance from medical or legal professionals to die". Should it really be necessary to point out to someone in Mr. Green's position that helping someone in a wheelchair up a steep incline is not the same as pushing them off a cliff? Has he really not considered the potential for widespread abuse in advocating that "'those too frail to take their own lives"' should be killed?

Those who are too frail to kill themselves are in even greater need of help, and doubtless an elderly person with a chronic disease with little prospect of recovery could be seen as terminally ill. From the perspective of a Health Service beset by the problem of not caring, it would certainly be a neat and swift end to a great many problems: as your report elsewhere shows, in some hospitals nurses are wearing red tabards with 'Do not disturb' written on them to prevent patients and others speaking to them while they are doing their drugs rounds. As Christina Odone notes in 'Nursing is no longer the caring profession', it was family members that helped her elderly mother to eat and drink and use the commode while in hospital, because it was so difficult to attract a nurse's attention.

Will it be easier to summon a 'euthanasor' nurse bearing a lethal hypodermic and wearing a black tabard emblazoned with the words 'Do not resuscitate'?

Yours faithfully,

Ann Farmer (Mrs)