Dr Paddy Leahy, the Irish euthanasia campaigner who is attempting to find a doctor to assist him to end his life in Thailand, has said he will remain in Thailand despite requests from the Thai Medical Council that he return to Ireland.
"I'll just sit and wait and see if they tell me to get out of the place," Dr Leahy told The Irish Times yesterday.
Dr Leahy is suffering from cancer, which returned despite major surgery. Before he left Ireland this month, he said he had been involved in at least 50 cases of euthanasia and had referred scores of other people to doctors willing to help them die.
Yesterday, Dr Supachai Kunarat, secretary-general of the Thai Medical Council, urged Dr Leahy to return home rather than attempt to terminate his life in Thailand.
"We respect the decision of the patient to refuse treatment, but active euthanasia is not considered ethical here," said Dr Supachai. "The majority of Thai people still think life is a sacred thing, so it's not right to terminate it. This is partly because of Buddhist culture, but even among medical practitioners uninterested in religion it's still seen as unethical."
Dr Leahy said he became aware of the Thai Medical Council's objections to his efforts to end his life only yesterday during a visit to a nearby hospital and a subsequent phone call from his daughter.
"I'm glad she told me," he said from the hotel in which he has holidayed for the past two decades. "I'm very, very friendly with the manager and manageress in the hotel. For 20 years they looked after us like royalty and to embarrass them would be terrible. I will speak to them in the morning in case the military come looking for me."
Dr Leahy admitted that he might have been "a bit naive" to expect a Thai doctor to assist him in arranging his own death.
"In fact, I'd have had a lot better chance in Ireland because I know a lot of doctors who would be pleased to do it, but I would rather not put them in that position," he said. "If I have to go elsewhere, I'll go elsewhere and see what can be done. But I'm not in a position to carry on."
Dr Leahy said the pain from the cancer was "pretty nasty" and that he was now almost totally immobile. "I can hobble on two crutches but the furthest I've been is to the hotel next door for a meal and that takes me 15 minutes."
He also said that he had not made it clear to his family that he travelled to Thailand to terminate his life.
"I left it kind of in the air a little bit," he said. "Obviously my daughter and my family are concerned. I hadn't made it properly clear to them what I intended to do."
Dr Leahy said he intended to "stay around here" unless he was forced to leave. "I'm philosophical right now. The only people I'm concerned about are my family. If they want to take me home and cremate me in Dublin, they can."