Tag: medically assisted dying (Page 3 of 5)

Why is the conscience of Liberal Tasmanian MPs so out of step with the conscience of the Tasmanian electors?

25/05/2017 / Ian Wood

Why is the conscience of Liberal Tasmanian MPs so out of step with the conscience of the Tasmanian electors?

In the ‘conscience’ vote on the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 24.5.2017, there were 13 Liberal votes against the Bill proceeding, and only one vote in support. That is 7% support compared with 80% support by the voters!! It is a travesty of the democratic system, where an MP is surely elected to represent the views of people who vote to elect that MP.

It is not as if the MPs are better informed than the public. I have not checked Hansard yet, but I did listen to much of the contributions MPs made to the debate. Most of the Liberal speakers simply indulged in scaremongering and hand wringing. Three or four seemed to say: “I agree with the concept but I cannot vote for it”. Farcical!

I do not recall that I heard one statement by those opposing that could be supported by evidence!

Judging by what was said, I seriously doubt if some had even read the Bill.

Why is true empathy and compassion for the terminally ill enduring futile unbearable suffering so lacking with these Liberals?

I suppose the one positive point from this debacle is that one young Liberal had the conscience and courage to break away from her colleagues. In the previous conscience vote on a similar Bill in 2013, all 10 Liberals voted against – surely a statistical impossibility for an issue supported by 4 out of 5 people generally.

What a mockery of the so called tenets of the Liberal Party!!! To quote from their website – We Believe: In the inalienable rights and freedoms of all peoples; and we work towards a lean government that minimises interference in our daily lives;………..

It is fascinating to compare this “Liberal conscience” with that of the Quebec Parliament in Canada. Quebec is or was the most Catholic province in Canada, yet In 2014, their Parliament voted 94 votes to 22 to give their adult residents assisted dying choice.

Ian Wood

Please support Annie’s right to choose. A heart wrenching plea to our politicians.

12/05/2017 / Ian Wood

Annie has extreme suffering as her Motor Neurone Disease is progressing rapidly.

Please view her video clip here.

Then sign her petition and share the link with your friends and ask them to sign too. As at June 3, Annie’s petition had 73,000 signatures. Since making this video clip I understand Annie can no longer speak.

To really make a difference email the photo and link to your Member of Parliament and ask them to support compassionate legislation to give choice in dying for people such as Annie.

I could not help but contrast the traumatic emotional state of Annie compared with the peaceful and happy emotional state of Ed Ness, pictured here .

and in this video link http://www.cheknews.ca/exclusive-ed-ness-dies-peacefully-in-doctor-assisted-death-324498/

Yet Annie is dying from terminal MND and Ed dying from terminal lung cancer.

The crucial difference is that in Canada Ed now has the assisted dying choice.

Both are short powerful videos that demonstrate visually to me what we are all fighting for.

We welcome the support of Canberra Quakers (The Religious Society of Friends (Canberra) Inc)

12/05/2017 / Ian Wood

I was delighted to receive the following message on 11th May 2017.

“Canberra Quakers (The Religious Society of Friends (Canberra) Inc) have joined Christians Supporting Choice for Voluntary Euthanasia in supporting the principle of choice in end of life decisions. We understand that facing the end of life in the adverse circumstances of extreme illness is very difficult for the sick person and their carers. In current circumstances, legal constraints limit the choices which a person can exercise. We would like laws providing choices, suiting the beliefs of the sick person, without threat of legal penalties.”

This is a valuable indication of positive support of our aim to have legal compassionate choice in dying.

Letter to Brad Hazzard, Minister for Health – Please have positive input into the NSW assisted dying draft legislation.

14/02/2017 / Ian Wood

My email to our new NSW Minister for Health, sent 13.2.2017

Brad Hazzard
Minister for Health

Dear Mr Hazzard

Congratulations on your appointment as Health Minister for NSW. It is encouraging that in the Daily Telegraph 6.2.2017 you are reported as recognising that more needs to be done for health matters in regional NSW.

You also stated that: “……often people depart this life in hospital…….”. This is certainly true, as NSW Prof Ken Hillman has noted: “Up to 70% of people now die in acute hospitals, surrounded by well meaning strangers, inflicting all that medicine has to offer; often resulting in a painful, distressing and degrading end to their life.”

Research indicates that in fact 70 to 80% of terminal patients would prefer to die at home. To enable this, adequately trained people are needed, plus the funding directed towards this service. I imagine it could well be ‘cost effective’ compared with dying in an Intensive Care Unit or similar? Ref: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-25/hundreds-access-program-of-end-of-life-care-at-home/6883162

Another issue relating to the terminally ill also attracts a similar level of 70 to 80% public support in NSW. That of assisted dying choice for the terminally or hopelessly ill who are facing futile suffering.

A cross party group of NSW MPs is currently working on a draft Bill to enable this choice, and I respectfully urge you to please have positive input into this much needed legislation, with the aim of ensuring that the final draft is such that you as Minister for Health could publicly support and vote to pass it. It does need to have a balance enabling access for the patients who wish to use it, and safeguards to protect from possible abuse.

There is now extensive data from other jurisdictions that proves this balance is possible.
– A wide ranging, in depth, Victorian Parliament Inquiry into End of Life Choices made Continue reading

VCAT rules in favour of Dr Rodney Syme

22/12/2016 / Ian Wood

I am delighted with the news from DWDV (Dying with Dignity Victoria). Here is the item direct from their website. VCAT is the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. Dr Rodney Syme is a person of great compassion and a doctor with true empathy for his patients. Post by Ian Wood.

http://www.dwdv.org.au/news/vcat-rules-in-favour-of-dr-rodney-syme

DWDV Vice President, Dr Rodney Syme, cleared by VCAT

21 December, 2016

Dying With Dignity Victoria are delighted by the recent ruling in Dr Rodney Syme’s VCAT case, where he fought against a condition placed on his medical license by the Medical Board of Australia in relation to counselling that he was providing to a Victorian man.

From the final report:

“Dr Syme’s practise is limited to advising and assisting patients who are in the final stages of terminal illness and to whom a sense of control over their dying is important. His patients seek him out. He does not advertise for patients.

He therefore has contact only with those patients who self-identify as being part of a cohort for whom traditional palliative care options may not be acceptable. Having been contacted by them, he assists only those whom he is satisfied are in a sound state of mind and whose death from their disease is inevitable or whose disease has progressed to the extent that their lives have become intolerable to them.

It is widely accepted in palliative medicine that, consistent with this clause, doses of medicine may be given to patients to relieve their pain and suffering even though it is foreseeable and indeed inevitable that those doses will also have the effect of hastening the patient’s death. The use of morphine and sedatives for this purpose is widely accepted and meets the needs of many patients. However, not all patients wish to receive that form of palliative care because of the loss of dignity, control and comfort which can be associated with it.”

The final report on the case released by VCAT is an interesting read, frankly detailing the work that Dr Syme does in counselling people who are suffering from terminal or advanced incurable illnesses as they near the end of their lives.

In determining that Dr Syme’s practises and counselling are intended to relieve suffering and not primarily aimed at ending a person’s life, VCAT has ultimately found that Dr Syme’s practises are not a risk or a danger to the community. They cited his knowledge of palliative care, his extensive experience in counselling people who are irremediably suffering at the end of their lives and the professional manner in which he has conducted his counselling.

Read the full report by clicking here

Create and send your personalised Voluntary Euthanasia Bill to the Politicians.

18/09/2016 / Ian Wood

Here is an exciting new initiative from Andrew Denton and his team at Go Gentle Australia. It is fully automated, takes only seconds to prepare, and looks impressive!
https://bethebill.com/bill/10153905379677338#

To quote from the Be The Bill Website…..

Create a version of a Voluntary Euthanasia Bill with your name in it, replacing the neutral legal word, ‘person’, as a symbol of your support. We’ll instantly send it to the 69 MPs in South Australia. Let’s remind them that the upcoming vote on the Bill is about real people, with real suffering, who are seeking the choice of a peaceful death. We won’t publish anything to your Facebook feed without your permission, but we hope you will share your Bill and spread the word.

The outcome of this vote won’t just affect one State. It will affect us all.

Please share on Facebook.

Regards

Ian

My comment that Life Site News did not want you to see!

30/08/2016 / Ian Wood

I refer to the article in Life Site News by Brad Mattes: https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/assisted-suicide-no-longer-just-for-the-terminally-ill

Here is my comment that they posted briefly, then took down.

I respectfully take issue with some of the points he [Brad Mattes] makes and ask for clarification, and make a comment on other points.

– Mr Mattes states: Assisted suicide or euthanasia is currently legal in Albania, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Japan, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. Would Mr Mattes please provide me with a link to the Act of Parliament in Albania and Japan that legalises assisted suicide or [voluntary] euthanasia?

The closest I can find is that they both permit turning off life support systems, which is also permitted in Australia.

– Next he states: Re Netherlands In 2013 — just 11 years later — it’s estimated they euthanized 650 babies. The use of the word ‘euthanized’ here is simply not correct! Research articles by Neil Francis, Dying For Choice, here and Prof, Colleen Cartwright confirm this.

On 12^th June 2013 the KNMG [Royal Dutch Medical Association] issued a media release announcing that it had published a position paper on ‘Medical end-of-life decisions in neonates with very serious defects’. The media release stated that of around 175,000 babies born each year in the Netherlands, “around 650 infants will die, usually as a result of very severe congenital defects and in spite of the best possible intensive care treatment.” Continue reading

“The Damage Done” Essential reading on the need for assisted dying laws – Andrew Denton

10/08/2016 / Ian Wood

From the introduction until the last page “The Damage Done” contains very moving factual testimonies about the dying of 72 terminally ill Australians. Every story indicates that in spite of the best efforts of palliative care, a change in the law is urgently required to give those who are dying an additional choice – the choice of an assisted death.

Congratulations to Andrew Denton and his team for collating and publishing this book.

“The Damage Done” can be downloaded as a free e-book from the Go Gentle Australia website. http://www.gogentleaustralia.org.au/the_damage_done

As well as reading “The Damage Done”, please listen to Andrew Denton’s brilliant, well articulated and factual speech at the National Press Club, Canberra on the topic of assisted dying. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-10/national-press-club:-andrew-denton/7716946

Have you looked at the Andrew Denton Podcasts I mentioned in an earlier post?

Canada passes Federal assisted dying law

19/06/2016 / Ian Wood

This is a major positive step in Canada, It is now up to Australia to follow this example.

The most comprehensive analysis of this change in Canada that I have read was posted on Facebook by Marshall Perron, who you may recall was Chief Justice in the Northern Territory . and who initiated the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act there some 20 years ago.

Here is Marshall’s posted article in full –

NEWS FROM CANADA
June 17, 2016: Canadian parliament completes passage of federal aid-in-dying legislation.

Yesterday will be remembered as yet another momentous step forward for our movement to establish the right to aid-in-dying as a fundamental human right.

Yesterday, Friday June 17, the Canadian Senate passed bill C-14 put forward by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party, which had previously been passed by the House of Commons. This made aid-in-dying fully legal all across Canada, and established a country-wide legal framework for its implementation.

There are many parameters of the new Canadian law which are similar to those of our own Oregon, Washington, Vermont and California laws. The Canadian law allows assisted dying for consenting adults “in an advanced stage of irreversible decline” from a serious and “incurable” disease, illness or disability and for whom natural death is “reasonably foreseeable.”

Canadian Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and Health Minister Jane Philpott issued a joint statement, saying: “The legislation strikes the right balance between personal autonomy for those seeking access to medically assisted dying and protecting the vulnerable.” The new law has the strong support of the Canadian Medical Association, which said in a statement that it was “pleased that historic federal legislation on medical aid in dying is now in place.” Cindy Forbes, president of the CMA, said the law brings clarity and balance to assisted dying. “I feel very confident the government has done the right thing.”

A brief summary of the history leading up to this momentous event: In June, 2014, the Canadian province of Quebec passed a groundbreaking and far-reaching aid-in-dying bill, and in February, 2015, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled unanimously (nine to nothing !!!!) that aid-in-dying is a fundamental human right for terminally ill people, part of a broader human right to compassionate care at end of life. On December 10, 2015, the Quebec law went into force. And on June 6, the Canadian Supreme Court’s ruling took effect, invalidating all previously existing laws banning aid-in-dying.

To us in the USA, it’s fascinating that the debate in Canada over the bill has not been about whether aid in dying should be legal, but rather about whether the new law goes far enough, and in particular that it does not help people who suffer from intolerable medical conditions even though they may not be “terminal.” The Canadian Supreme Court’s 2015 decision establishes intolerable physical suffering as a condition for aid in dying without requiring that the person be terminal. However, Ellen Wiebe, a Vancouver doctor who has been assisting in deaths, said she sees the new law as flexible. In her view, patients with advanced multiple sclerosis, who would die if they did not accept treatment, could be deemed to face a “reasonably foreseeable” natural death, and therefore be eligible for medical assistance to end their lives.

15/06/2016 / Ian Wood

Andrew Denton’s masterly and compassionate summing up of the assisted dying argument is a ‘must view’ in his Keynote Address to the Voluntary Euthanasia Party (VEP) of New South Wales.

http://www.vep.org.au/audio