British doctor Richard Coker admits shortening the lives of dozens of patients

Richard Coker: «I have shortened the lives of dozens of patients»

Dr Richard Coker has ended nearly 45 years of practice with a confession that could land him in prison: he administered high doses of morphine to dozens of terminally ill patients to hasten their deaths. He was 26 when he did it for the first time, on a winter night with London's St Mary's hospital overwhelmed by flu admissions. His book, written after retirement, seeks a change in how pain and assisted dying are treated.

The reaction was not long in coming. Some accuse him of «playing God», stressing that he did not consult his patients' families. Others point out that palliative sedation has always skirted the edge of euthanasia, and that the system prefers not to look. One real account confirms it: a family describes how doctors insisted on raising the morphine dose for a terminal cancer patient, leaving her asleep, while the daughters wrestled between prolonging her agony or letting her die on her own. There is no easy answer from the other side of the bed.

Coker worked 120 hours a week. Under those conditions, the line between relieving pain and deciding the end blurs. The case has also exposed a certain hypocrisy: the same doctor who hastened deaths was against vitamin supplements for being dangerous. The irony escapes no one. The debate on euthanasia is deadlocked once again: as long as the legal framework does not change, the decision will keep depending on the doctor on duty and the silent pressure of the emergency room.