Coronation Street suicide risks promoting “dangerous myths”

This week's Coronation Street episode which showed the character, Hayley Cropper, drink a lethal cocktail of drugs to end her life, has been criticised  for giving credence to "dangerous myths about the dying process" in relation to patients with serious illness.

Speaking on ITV Daybreak, Dr. Peter Saunders of the Christian Medical Fellowship, said he was concerned that the show "did not paint the correct picture of suicidal people" and misrepresented how patients really dealt with the final stages of their illnesses.

"What was quite incongruous about last night's show is that we have Hayley, right at the end of her life, having cups of tea, hugging her surrogate grandchildren and giving relationships advice to people...it's just not the picture of suicidal people," he said.

"[They] generally feel alone in the world, that nobody loves them, that they are a burden on others...and somehow their deaths are going to relieve the burden to others."
  
He said that having managed many dying patients, he was also concerned that the drama reinforced the myths that pain caused by cancer cannot be controlled and that effective pain relief causes confusion and loss of identity. 

Watch the full interview on ITV Daybreak here >

Dr Andrew Fergusson of Care Not Killing has also commented on the storyline in an interview with BBC Radio Essex, which you can listen to here >