Cold comfort from Thais for cancer-stricken GP

The Medical Council in Thailand has urged a cancer-stricken retired Dublin doctor and campaigner for euthanasia who went to the Far East to kill himself to return home to Ireland.

Dr Paddy Leahy faced surgery after an earlier operation failed to stop the return of cancer. In a recorded interview, broadcast on Tuesday on Irish radio, the retired GP said that he was going to end his life in Thailand. He had taken regular holidays there over the past 20 years and regarded it as a second home.

But yesterday the secretary-general of the Thai Medical Council emphasised that euthanasia was illegal there and said that the majority of Thai people saw it as "unethical and socially unacceptable".

He also urged the Irishman to return home. It was unclear last night where Dr Leahy was, or if he had already carried out his plan.

Dr Leahy had been an outspoken supporter of euthanasia in Ireland in recent years. He had indicated his plan privately to friends and family some time ago.

In the radio interview he said: "Emotionally I'm fragile and I've decided that it's the best way."

He said he knew of other doctors in Ireland who would have helped him to die but did not want to put them at risk by involving them.

Two years ago, Dr Leahy revealed that several years earlier he had helped a friend who had suffered a serious stroke bring about his wish to die. Afterwards he said that he had been approached by numerous people with terminal illnesses who wanted to die.

He said he had been involved in 50 cases of euthanasia, and claimed every county in Ireland had a doctor who would be prepared to help such patients die.

Dr Leahy argued that euthanasia should be left up to the "common sense" of doctors and patients, rather than be subject to legislation.

A GP in the Dublin working- class suburb of Ballyfermot until he retired in 1990, Dr Leahy was a prominent campaigner in the Seventies for the introduction of contraception, and was also a vocal critic of private medicine.