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‘SUICIDE TOURISM’ TO Switzerland has doubled within the space of four years, according to a major study published today.
The number of individuals travelling to the country, where assisted suicide is legal, to die at clinics such as Dignitas, rose from 86 in 2009 to 172 in 2012.
Between 2008 and 2012, a total of two Irish residents engaged in what is known as “suicide tourism,” according to the study published today in the Journal of Medical Ethics.
Who and why?
Significantly, researchers found that nearly half (47%) of those who travelled from abroad for an assisted suicide had neurological conditions such as ALS/motor neurone disease or Parkinson’s disease.
Among the 611 individuals who had an assisted suicide at a Swiss clinic from 2008-2012, ages ranged between 23 and 97 years, and 58% were women.
Residents of Germany and the UK alone made up nearly two thirds of the numbers, while in total, people from 31 different countries went to Switzerland for an assisted suicide in this time period.
All bar four of the cases reported were handled by Dignitas, the group which operates assisted suicide clinics in Switzerland.
The researchers, led by Dr Saskia Gauthier at the University of Zurich, suggest that the availability of assisted suicide in Switzerland, and the phenomenon of suicide tourism that results from it, is changing how other countries debate the issue.
Dr Charles Foster from Oxford University, speaking in an English context, laid out two ways in which the sharply increasing use of Swiss clinics was leading to even more talk about legalisation of assisted suicide abroad.
The first is the liberalisation of public opinion that comes naturally, if irrationally, with familiarity.
And the second is the slowly growing public acknowledgement that there is something intellectually, if not morally, uncomfortable, about getting another country to do your dirty work.
Tom Curran, partner of right-to-die campaigner the late Marie Fleming, revealed in March that he was drafting legislation that would legalise assisted suicide in Ireland.
In an interview with TheJournal.ie, Curran said he had set up a working group of four barristers to draw up the planned bill.
In April 2013, the Supreme Court dismissed a case brought by Fleming, who has multiple sclerosis (MS), which sought to establish a constitutional right to die.
She died just before Christmas last year.
Scroll down to read today’s study in full.
http://cdn.thejournal.ie/media/2014/08/jme102091.pdf
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They hire the 130 staff in order to automate the jobs of 1000s of staff. Then once the 130 have their jobs mostly done they can outsource maintenance of the system they created to some crowd in India and send the 130 home as well.
Eventually it will be just Mr. BOI laying in a hammock between two palm trees on the beach in the Bahamas with a cocktail in one hand and his phone in the other watching his bank balance steadily increase.
Fees will remain as high as ever if not higher, if you need to talk to a human to do something it will be nigh on impossible.
@Quiet Goer: they have moved to electronic forms with no need to be in branch to open an account and those hires will be to push on with the electronic stuff, has really sped along the old paper process
@Quiet Goer: withdrawal syndrome eh!
@Quiet Goer: Mr BOI and Hans Gruber must be going to the same beach……20% rates, I hear.
They close every outlet in the country yet. To contact them you need an email address. But if you owe them money they ring you on a private number.
They could do with a few people on their Mortgages phone line too. Just spent 24 mins on hold to get through to them. Funny enough, when you select the option for a new mortgage, you’re put through to someone straight away.
Outsourcing wasn’t as good as they thought it would be I guess! Given that they laid off or outsourced the vast majority of IT staff in the last decade.
@Melissa OHara: was it not just IT infrastructure and support that was outsourced. App development may still be in house.
Please please keep some humans… Online does not replace the need to talk and be heard and understood…. No Bot can do that with any degree of satisfaction….
@Jackie Healy:
Since when is a bank a psychiatrist?
The government is a major share holder in BOI and has not brought them to heal in any of their restructuring policies. Obviously big business owns the government and its cronies.
@Seán Dillon: Gov in the minority with 12%. On the sidelines waiting to cash out.
%14 oops
@Seán Dillon:
The bank is slowing healing from 2008 upset.
A few more years after full recovery, hopefully there will be a punter around to take that 14% off the Government’s hands at a decent price.
Off loading the larger chunks of equity held in the other two will take a fair while longer.
They have how many I T specialists in k b c . That they are taking over.
Surely that would be the best option for them
@Shay Flynn: not taking over kbc just buying the loan book arent they
Just pretend you’re buying something and you’ll get a human response pronto. I phoned BOI finance and got a name and number of a Regional Manager and my outstanding issue was resolved. Before that I did a tour of India or somewhere and the employees had no overview or authority to deal with a very small correction to my address . It was small but meant post was going elsewhere. They changed their system very shortly after I pointed out my comedy of errors.
Oh My God ! … I spoke to a real person ! What ? When did this happen ? That’s not supposed to happen ! I will report it immediately ! Some Bot is not functioning correctly .
I don’t think anyone in the comments section here gets it. Banking is changing, everything is going digital. If the legacy Banking system can’t convert they are done. BoI have failed in their attempts to modernize and compete with the new banking paradigm – I’m talking about Revolut etc. – now they need to take a less tentative conservative approach, otherwise they are bust. This is not just about profit margins, it’s about survival.
@mcmonkeys1: I was puzzled by the reference to cheques. Who uses cheques anymore?
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