Why I arranged mercy killing of Scots socialite

THE Glasgow doctor who arranged for a pioneering businesswoman to end her life at a Swiss clinic last night revealed how the socialite was angry she had to travel there to die.

Libby Wilson, a former GP and family planning specialist in the city, said 82-year-old Elisabeth Rivers-Bulkeley wanted to end her days in her East Lothian home, rather than being forced to fly to another country for a lethal injection.

But although Rivers-Bulkeley had also wanted to publicise her plight before her death last December to highlight voluntary euthanasia, she eventually made the trip in secrecy, to protect the identity of her travelling companion.

Wilson said that despite the setback the cancer sufferer, who did not want to be a "nuisance" to anyone, was cheerful and joking with those around her as she prepared to die.

Rivers-Bulkeley flew to Zurich on December 18 and her life was ended with a fatal dose of barbiturates at the Dignitas clinic in the city a day later. According to Wilson, the 80-year-old UK convener of the voluntary euthanasia group Friends at the End (FATE), who liaised between Rivers-Bulkeley and the clinic, Rivers-Bulkeley said she wanted her death to cause a debate, and had considered how to gain the maximum publicity for her situation.

Wilson said: "She got in touch in September and explained she had terminal cancer and wanted help getting to the clinic in Switzerland

"It is my role to check whether Dignitas will take a particular person, and I knew that if it's terminal cancer then the clinic will accept you.

"She knew she was terminally ill and her condition was only going to get worse, so she wanted to end her life before she felt she was becoming a nuisance to everybody and while she was still in control.

"She was very unhappy she had to go to another country for this, and said she would rather have had the extra time with her family and friends here. But she had to go away while she was still capable of travelling and could get on the plane."

Wilson added: "She wanted to travel alone, and at the beginning she was keen on her situation being publicised. She felt very strongly about the issue. But the policy at Dignitas is that you should be accompanied, and when she learned about that she decided she did not want to expose her friend to publicity."

That phone call in September set in train a three-month scramble for the paperwork for Rivers-Bulkeley to be allowed to die at the clinic. Dignitas first of all insists would-be clients become members of its organisation, which costs a £50 joining fee and £25 per year.

It insists on written opinions from two doctors, recently-certified copies of birth certificates, copies of residence permits or proof of address, and marriage or divorce documents.

Dying at the Zurich clinic costs £3,000, not including flights, the cost of getting documents, or the final night's stay in a hotel on the eve of the death. The organisation decrees that people must arrive the previous day to have some time to think the situation through.

On the day of the death, the member goes to a Zurich flat to be given the barbiturates. The whole process is witnessed and filmed so a tape of the incident can be viewed by local police.

Rivers-Bulkeley was born in 1924, the daughter of an Austrian industrialist. She was an ice-skating champion as a child and found herself in England when the Second World War broke out.

She married in the UK in 1943, and later led a campaign for women to be allowed to become stockbrokers in the City of London. She retired to Scotland but developed breast and bowel cancer about a year ago.

Wilson and Austrian-born Rivers-Bulkeley spoke by telephone on four occasions, as they made the arrangements for her death. Rivers-Bulkeley finally received the go-ahead for the assisted suicide in November.

Wilson said Rivers-Bulkely had always been "very lucid and cheerful and matter-of-fact about the whole thing.

"She even joked about the bureaucracy of getting a copy of her birth certificate from Vienna, which caused frustrations as it took three weeks to arrive."

Wilson said she typically received about five calls a week from people enquiring about suicide, but many were not considered suitable for death at the clinic. Dignitas will only accept those with a terminal or incurable, severe medical condition.

She said: "If someone phones up wanting to die because they feel depressed or unhappy, I either just talk to them or refer them for help or counselling. Very often, it helps people just to be able to talk to someone."

Anti-euthanasia organisations have condemned the assistance Rivers-Bulkeley was given. Phyllis Bowman, the executive director of Right to Life, said: "No matter how lucid this woman may have appeared, it's clear she was suffering from depression. It is quite wrong of organisations to exploit her suffering for their agenda.

"Once she had been helped to deal with her depression she would have wanted to make the most of each moment of life. After all, once you're dead, you're dead for a very long time."

A spokesman for the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland said: "Deliberate killing is never an answer. Human dignity and human life must be protected."