MY LIFE MY CHOICE A newsletter for supporters of voluntary assisted dying law reform in Queensland — No.3 August 2019

Reform needed sooner not later

David Muir Chair The Clem Jones Trust

POLLING SHOWS QUEENSLANDERS WANT ACTION

A statewide opinion poll conducted for the Clem Jones Group shows the community expects action to be taken on the inquiry into voluntary assisted dying before the 2020 election.

The statewide poll of 899 people was conducted on Thursday 22 August 2019 by uCommunications Pty Ltd and showed:

The Queensland Parliament’s inquiry into end-of-life issues including voluntary assisted dying has changed its reporting deadline from the end of November to March 2020.

The change means any new voluntary assisted dying laws recommended by the cross-party Health Committee’s inquiry might not be debated and passed before the next election due in October 2020.

In reality there is no time to lose. Even after voluntary assisted dying laws are passed by Parliament, it can be 18 months before they take effect because training, accreditation, and protections need to be put in place.

The matter is especially urgent when you consider that each week in our state a terminally ill person is likely to take their own life in horrific and lonely circumstances because they see no other way to relieve their suffering.

Although the inquiry’s reporting deadline has changed it can still ensure action is taken swiftly on new voluntary assisted dying laws.

The Health Committee can make recommendations on voluntary assisted dying in a separate early report by the end of November and report on aged care and palliative care by March next year.

This is a simple and workable solution that would ensure new laws could be finalised in this term of parliament rather than becoming a political football in a partisan election campaign.

The inquiry was established by the current Parliament, it will report to the current Parliament, so we have every right to expect our 93 MPs in the current Parliament should deal with this issue and not let it become a political point-scoring exercise in an election campaign.

I urge supporters of voluntary assisted dying to tell their local state MP they want action on voluntary assisted dying laws sooner not later.

Model Bill ready to roll

Community support for voluntary assisted dying remains high at 82% compared with around 80% in a similar survey in August 2018.

Almost 84% of respondents agreed that end-of-life care should offer terminally ill people the option of voluntary assisted dying if they believed palliative care did not relieve their suffering (70% strongly agree plus 13.6% agree).

82% of those surveyed said they believed the State Government should address the issue urgently (53.3% very urgently plus 29% somewhat urgently).

Almost 77% of respondents wanted to see any new voluntary assisted dying laws passed by State Parliament before the October 2020 state election.

The Queensland Parliament’s inquiry has the benefit of a model Bill for voluntary assisted dying submitted by Brisbane-based end-of-life legal experts Professor Ben White and Professor Lindy Willmott (pictured) which can form the basis for legislation to be considered by State Parliament as soon as possible. Both Professor White and Professor Willmott have served on the Queensland Law Reform Commission and are experts in drafting complex laws on sensitive issues. The architect of the world’s first voluntary assisted dying laws, former Northern Territory Chief Minister, Marshall Perron, has told the inquiry the model Bill is the best legislation of its type he has seen.

Photo: xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Jos Hall President Dying With Dignity Queensland www.dwdq.org.au

Locals pack the Hervey Bay RSL Club meeting room before the inquiry starts

Local MPs hear arguments for VAD law reform

The cross-party inquiry due to report to the Queensland Parliament in November on end-of-life issues has been travelling the state to listen to Queenslanders.

Last month I was pleased to travel with members of the Clem Jones Group to attend inquiry hearings in Hervey Bay, Bundaberg, and Rockhampton.

It was pleasing to see local MPs at packed meetings in each centre where their local constituents gave evidence.

Once again the committee gave locals the chance to voice their support for voluntary assisted dying law reform.

Like the hearings I have attended in other centres this year, the personal stories told to the inquiry in Hervey Bay, Bundaberg, and Rockhampton in support of voluntary assisted dying were heartbreaking and reflect a deep community sentiment in our state.

The arguments for law reform put forward by average Queenslanders were compelling. This page features extracts from just some of the numerous witnesses at those hearings.

Their words show why voluntary assisted dying law reform is so necessary and so urgent.

“Keeping people alive by any and every means is morally reprehensible. I have never given my right to make decisions about my future to priests or the medical fraternity. I resent such persons trying to make decisions for me. Intellectually and morally, they do not have an exclusive hold on the truth.” Tony O’Brien — retired research scientist and international consultant at Hervey Bay hearing

“Death is a part of life. Why deny it? Why make it long and prolonged and painful when it is not necessary? I do not understand people who insist that somebody with a terminal illness must go to the very, very end before they are helped out and sometimes not helped out at all. Why is it so difficult to go gently when we must go in possibly the next days or weeks because our bodies are no longer capable of living a proper life?” Valerie Manning — Bundaberg hearing

“My father-in-law went through the most hideous last four weeks of his life. His pain was uncontrollable, even with the drugs administered by the palliative care he was receiving. Unfortunately, he had to put up with all of this suffering until his last laboured breath. I put to you at this stage of his dying why would another human deny him the relief of a peaceful death that is foreseeable by administering a drug that will relieve him of suffering further? Knowing the choice of having voluntary euthanasia available takes away the distress from the person who is facing the last weeks of their life.”

Cynthia Workman — Bundaberg hearing

“My only question for everyone, and it is a yes or no question, there is no debate about it, my yes or no question is should we be, as people and as keepers of our own rights, allowed to choose a humane and dignified death wherever possible? There is only one answer and that to me is yes.” Corina Robinson — Bundaberg hearing

“Palliative care has its place. From my experiences, I think assisted dying has its place. I think we should look at each of them equally. Everyone has to die. Life presents us with choices, and that has to be one of the choices: how do you wish to die?” Judy Allen — retired registered nurse, chemotherapy nurse and palliative care nurse at Hervey Bay hearing

“I sat with [a friend dying from cancer] for four days watching her cry out in pain and she literally starved and thirsted to death, which was the only way she could hasten her death. I put my pets to sleep because I love them and I only wish I could have done that for my friend. It was just cruel. I too am a Christian person, but I believe that my God is a merciful God and he would not want that for anybody.” Lyn Morgan — Rockhampton hearing

“The average life expectancy of someone with my stage of [breast] cancer is 2½ years. Like my mother, I am a strong person. I am educated. I am a Christian. I have strong morals and strong values. I am a mother of two boys, a grandmother of two grandchildren and a wife. I want the right to choose my life journey. I do not believe that palliative care and the request for voluntary assisted dying are mutually exclusive. They can work together. There is no reason the two cannot support each over and I can have a good end to my life.” Linda Gardiner — Rockhampton hearing

Doctors respect patients’ choices

respondents indicated that voluntary assisted dying can be a legitimate part of medical care. The AMA sensibly says that voluntary assisted dying legislation is a matter for society, and though it can only speak for a fraction of Queensland doctors (less than 1-in-3 doctors are AMA affiliated), it wishes to have a voice in the subsequent process.

In Victoria 220 doctors have already undertaken the training mandated under the state’s voluntary assisted dying laws that took effect from June. This simple fact shows doctors are willing to put patients first and engage in a well-designed and regulated system of voluntary assisted dying.

Opponents of voluntary assisted dying often claim it is inconsistent with the principles and ethics that apply to the provision of health care by medical practitioners.

Doctors are bound by the legal and professional duty to relieve suffering, and to respect the self-determined goals of patients. That includes patients who have decided that they may want to access voluntary assisted dying.

Critics claim that doctors who help terminally ill people to access voluntary assisted dying are breaking their commitment to do no harm to their patients. They ignore the fact the patient is dying and that to allow them to suffer in the process is itself harmful to them.

Doctors must not abandon their patients which means in some cases it will involve them providing active assistance in dying, as the best means of minimising suffering and supporting a gentle death.

Voluntary assisted dying in such cases fulfils a doctor’s duty to their patient as the final compassionate component of continuous, patient-centred care.

Far from eroding community trust in doctors, their participation in a properly regulated system of voluntary assisted dying will strengthen confidence in the profession as it participates in a regime endorsed by the community.

Of course the type of law we desire in Queensland should have provisions to protect doctors and other medical professionals with conscientious objections to participating in the voluntary assisted dying process.

Such provisions exist in laws in effect in overseas jurisdictions and feature in the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 now in effect in Victoria and in the Bill to be debated by the West Australian Parliament.

Despite currently opposing voluntary assisted dying, the Australian Medical Association (AMA) acknowledges there are widely differing opinions on end-of-life care among its members.

For instance, in the most recent AMA member consultation report on this issue (December 2016) just over half of the

US physician rebuts critics Retired US physician Dr David Grube was in WA recently at the invitation of voluntary assisted dying advocacy group Go Gentle.

Dr Grube (pictured) practised in the state of Oregon where voluntary assisted dying has been legal since 1997. In a Network 10 TV news report he said Oregon has seen none of the catastrophic impacts critics and opponents of voluntary assisted dying laws had predicted before they took effect.

“There’s not been misuse or abuse,” he said of the Oregon laws.

Dr Grube said in Oregon voluntary assisted dying was “an uncommonly used option”. A total of around 36,000 people died in Oregon last year with 163 being people who accessed voluntary assisted dying which represents 0.4% of deaths in the state.

Dr Grube said the majority of terminally ill people who explored voluntary assisted dying did not follow through with it but its mere presence as an end-of-life option had a palliative effect for them.

A new 70-minute film tells the story of West Australians suffering at the end of life and calling on state MPs to support voluntary assisted dying.

The Broken Hearted was made by Juliet Lamont and Josh Raymond who travelled across WA to record the personal stories of more than two dozen people.

The film, commissioned by Go Gentle, is available for viewing on its website.

Dr Sid Finnigan MBBS, FRANZCO Queensland Convenor Doctors For Assisted Dying Choice

LAW IN FOCUS

In other states…..

The My Life My Choice newsletter is produced by the Clem Jones Group, Dying With Dignity Queensland, and Doctors For Assisted Dying Choice (Queensland) for supporters of voluntary assisted dying law reform in Queensland.

Contact: The Clem Jones Group 07 3391 3406 / admin@clemjonesgroup.com.au

Moves are under way to have the Tasmanian Parliament reconsider the issue of voluntary assisted dying law reform. VAD Bills have failed to pass Tasmania's parliament on three previous occasions, the last in 2017. An ABC News report said Dying with Dignity Tasmania believed the composition of the current Tasmanian Parliament provided the best chance at having voluntary assisted dying legislation passed as Speaker Sue Hickey, a former Liberal Party member but now unaligned, supported VAD in principle, several MPs who voted against past Bills were no longer in parliament, and Premier Will Hodgman who voted against law reform in the past had now said he is open-minded on the issue.

Victorian woman, Kerry Robertson, 61, became the first person to end her life under the state’s new voluntary assisted dying laws on 15 July. Her daughters, Jacqui Hicks and Nicole Robertson, described her death at a Bendigo nursing home as “beautiful and peaceful”. “It was a beautiful, positive experience,” the two women said. “It was the empowered death that she wanted.” In 2010 Mrs Robertson was diagnosed with breast cancer which metastasised to her bones, lungs and brain. In March it spread to her liver and, as the side-effects of chemotherapy were no longer manageable, she decided to stop all treatment. Victoria’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Act took effect from 19 June.

The West Australian government has released its Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2019 which is expected to be extensively debated by MPs for much of the remainder of the parliamentary year. The ABC News website and The Conversation website both have summaries of the Bill. WA Premier Mark McGowan said: “Many people across the community who have had their parents or loved one pass away in agony want something done, and that's what this is about.”

You can follow the inquiry through its website.

There you can access transcripts of the public hearings held so far at centres across Queensland

Supporters of voluntary assisted dying are urged to attend hearings and listen to the evidence backing urgently needed law reform.

Visit the inquiry website to book your place.

Follow the Queensland inquiry

The inquiry into end-of-life issues by the State Parliament’s cross-party Health Committee is continuing its hearings. The inquiry was set up last year by the Parliament at the request of Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

It is examining three key issues — aged care, palliative care, and voluntary assisted dying law reform.

Belinda Teh, 27, spent almost a month recently walking 4,500 km from Melbourne to Perth to raise awareness of the need for voluntary assisted dying laws, inspired by her mother’s death from breast cancer in 2016. In Perth she was met by WA Premier Mark McGowan and Health Minister Roger Cook (pictured). “With every day that goes by, dying people are suffering in our community due to the lack of an assisted dying law. Nothing will change unless everyday Australians like you and me tell our politicians that we will not stand for this any longer,” she said.