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A doctor who set up her own assisted dying clinic in Switzerland says her job is "not playing god".

Doctor Erika Preisig said the criteria for administering the lethal medicine intravenously were based on clients being of "sound mind", having considered "assisted dying for a long time - which means months, better years".

She also said clients "must not be influenced by anybody else", "must not have a psychiatric illness which reduces mental capacity" and "must have an incurable illness".

It comes after Dr Preisig helped two elderly British cousins, Phyllis McConachie and Stuart Henderson to die even though they were not terminally ill. Mrs McConachie was deaf and Mr Henderson was blind and in the early stages of dementia.

The pair had lived together for 40 years and feared that their frailty would force them into separate care homes, a prospect they said they would rather die than face up to.

Dr Preisig said: "It is not my judgement it is their judgement. They have to tell me what they want and I have to listen to them"

Later in the programme, anti-euthanasia campaigner Gordon MacDonald from Care Not Killing, an alliance of 40 organisations opposed to assisted dying, said: "Neither of them was terminally ill.

鈥淭hat's one of the big concerns we have about legalising assisted suicide - you start off with people who are terminally ill, and then you extend it to people who are not terminally ill, and then you extend it to people who have got other conditions, and then you extend it to children and then you extend it to disabled infants. That's exactly what has happened under other jurisdictions."

This clip is originally from 5 live Daily on Monday 9 February 2015.

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