A PROPOSAL by Dr Jim McDaid (FF, Donegal North East) to legalise diamorphine for the terminally ill is to be referred to, the Department of Health's chief medical officer.
Dr McDaid, who is closely involved with the hospice movement in Donegal, said diamorphine (heroin) was a drug of choice in Northern Ireland and Britain. The Foyle Hospice in Derry catered for many people from the Inishowen peninsula, so, many of them would be breaking, the law if they continued to be treated with the drug by hospice nurses after returning home.
Patients travelling from Britain and the North to the Republic could bring diamorphine with them for their own use, said Dr McDaid. "This is a highly undesirable practice as far as any drug is concerned. Surely the sensible thing to do is to allow the medical profession to use their discretion rather than have lay people in possession of a drug which is actually illegal here and which would make a doctor or a nurse liable to prosecution if they administered it in this State."