Former Ofsted chief considers ending life at assisted suicide clinic

Chris Woodhead, who has motor neurone disease, praises ‘dignified’ Swiss Dignitas facility Chris Woodhead, the former head of Ofsted, is considering ending his life at Dignitas , the Swiss assisted-suicide clinic. Woodhead, who was head of the schools’ inspectorate between 1994 and 2000, was diagnosed with motor neurone (MND) disease five years ago and uses a wheelchair. The disease gradually destroys the nerves that control muscles for moving, speaking, swallowing and breathing. Despite his poor health, Woodhead remains one of the UK’s most controversial education commentators. He told the Times Educational Supplement (TES) that a BBC documentary about Dignitas, aired in June, showed that those who ended their lives there did so in a “dignified” way. “I thought it wasn’t a bad way to go,” he said. The programme – Choosing to Die – was presented by the author Terry Pratchett, who has Alzheimer’s disease. It showed Peter Smedley, a British hotelier with MND, ending his life. “It was very dignified,” Woodhead said. “His wife was there and they sat on the sofa together. It was 30 seconds or so, and he was coughing a bit and he looked in some discomfort, but I thought it wasn’t a bad way to go.” The former teacher and Oxford University lecturer said that if he waited too long, he might be unable to swallow the pill used by the clinic. “It is an issue for me, an incredibly difficult issue, in fact, as to what point in time you decide you’ve had enough and you kill yourself,” he said. “The decision cannot be entirely your own: Christine, my wife, Tamsin, my daughter, maybe even my granddaughter, the oldest one – they’ve all got views. If it weren’t for them, I might already have said I’d had enough.” Woodhead said politicians would never “have the balls” to legitimise assisted dying in England. “They’ve decided that there could be a badger cull – maybe they could agree, too, that there should be a cull of the terminally ill.” In the last five years of his parents’ lives, he began to wonder why they could not “just hold hands together and go”, he said. “They became increasingly irascible as they became increasingly desperate about their plight. “Their experience, and my experience watching them, and my experience now, makes me feel that there are no persuasive arguments against [assisted dying].” In 2009, Woodhead said he would be more likely to “drive myself in a wheelchair off a cliff in Cornwall than go to Dignitas and speak to a bearded social worker about my future”. He is renowned for attacking teaching unions and for castigating progressive teaching methods and continues to rage against them. Woodhead told the TES that teaching unions were a “huge negative influence on the public perception of the profession”. He added: “They’re not prepared to acknowledge that anything is wrong, that any changes are necessary.” Woodhead once claimed there were 15,000 “incompetent” teachers and that he was paid to “challenge mediocrity, failure and complacency”. He resigned in 2000. More than 1,000 people have travelled to Dignitas to end their lives. Assisted suicide Motor neurone disease Health & wellbeing Ofsted Jessica Shepherd guardian.co.uk

Posted by on September 30, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.