GP suspended over suicide case

A Glasgow GP who gave sleeping pills to an elderly patient so she could commit suicide said he "regretted the circumstances" that resulted in his censure by the General Medical Council (GMC).

Dr Iain Kerr, 61, was suspended from practising medicine for six months for prescribing sodium amytal to a retired businesswoman after she told him she had considered suicide.

John Donnelly, chairman of the GMC Fitness to Practise Panel, told the doctor he had allowed his views on physician-assisted suicide to influence his treatment of the woman known as Patient A.

He said: "You made a serious misjudgment and embarked on a potentially criminal act." The GP also prescribed sleeping pills to five other elderly patients.

Mr Donnelly said the four aggravating features of the case were the fact he had prescribed sodium amytal to Patient A so she could end her life, that he did not admit her to hospital or make appropriate notes after she took a Temazepam overdose, and that he prescribed her with more Temazepam following her overdose.

He also failed to make a record or adhere to guidance in giving reasons for prescribing sodium amytal.

Dr Kerr, who had a surgery at the Williamwood Medical Centre in Clarkston, Glasgow, for 30 years, prescribed sodium amytal pills to five other patients, despite the fact that four of them did not suffer from insomnia. Medical guidelines stated that the pills should be used to treat only "severe and intractable insomnia".

He revealed his views on physician-assisted suicide during an appraisal in 2004 when he admitted prescribing patients with sodium amytal to help them kill themselves. His frank confession resulted in an investigation by local health authorities and Strathclyde Police, who took no action against him after finding there was insufficient evidence.

Dr Kerr told patients he was a member of the Euthanasia Society and revealed he was once a member of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society of Scotland. The doctor, who is married to a nurse and has three children, branded the law an ass and said it was out of step "with what a significant minority of people think" during the nine-day hearing in Manchester.

The GMC ruled his fitness to practise was impaired by virtue of his misconduct and branded his actions "inappropriate, irresponsible, liable to bring the profession into disrepute and not in your patient's best interest".

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