A time to heal

A New Zealand man is furious that the man who murdered his daughter will receive a bone-marrow transplant to treat his leukaemia. The operation is expected to cost perhaps up to a million dollars, much of that going to provide two guards around the clock while the murderer is in hospital.

The father, David Gunn, told the media,

He's sick. Rather than spend a million dollars on him, just spend a few dollars on an ounce of lead.

New Zealand has no death penalty. The murderer was sentenced to a minimum non-parole period of 21 years (which means he can’t be considered for parole before then). This is one of the New Zealand’s longest non-parole sentences.

The father also said,

They're going to pay over a million dollars for this bloody operation. I'd prefer him to rot in hell.

But a spokesperson for the Tauranga branch of the Sensible Sentencing Trust, Ken Evans, expressed the views of many New Zealanders when he said,

I believe his offending has to be dealt with by the courts and I think his medical condition is something the medical system of New Zealand has to deal with as it would with any other person who has a similar illness.

According to the Department of Corrections, while prisoners receive primary health care through the Department, they’re considered for secondary and tertiary health care under the same eligibility criteria as all members of the public.

Refusing treatment would amount to a death sentence, a penalty that doesn’t exist in law. The murderer’s offending has been dealt with by the courts. It seems to me that if the sentence isn’t severe enough, that’s a matter for the politicians to change in the future.

Deliberately withholding life-saving treatment from anyone seems immoral to me and the equivalent of executing the person. A society is judged, among other things, by the quality of its mercy. Given that murderers can’t be executed, if we sit back and let the murderer die, wouldn’t that then be a kind of murder, too?

What do you think? Should a convicted murderer get life-saving medical treatment?