News

Victoria’s Voluntary Assisted Dying bill was enacted today, making Victoria the first Australian state to legalise, and provide for, doctor assisted self-killing of vulnerable people.

Six-hour workshops have been held to provide ‘guidelines’ for medical practitioners willing to assist in the suicides – brief training considering the emotional challenges to staff, doctor or patient, and problems that may arise in administering lethal drugs or ‘safeguarding’ the process.

Many questions are still unanswered.

• Only registered health practitioners have the right to freedom of conscience not to participate in assisted suicide/VAD. What about all the other staff members involved in the death process?
• Who is responsible for ensuring the patient stops taking laxatives and other medications, fasts the required number of hours prior to ingesting the lethal dose, and turns off an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) if they have one?
• Who will advise the patient on how to use the suspension and sweet syrup, the lethal substances, and the tools?
• Have aged care services been suitably briefed on storage of the VAD lethal substances in a resident’s possession? What measures are being taken for the security of the substances, especially if unused?
• Do our overworked health services, residential aged care providers, health practitioners and other staff have time to properly convene the required planning meetings to discuss the 19 key areas of responsibility like ‘staff capacity and willingness to be involved,’ ‘personal preferences e.g. music, clothing, bedside rituals or customs the patient would like in place’ and ‘who will be responsible for assessing and managing risks for bereaved individuals?’

This is bad, ideology-driven, harmful legislation. Once again, Victoria’s legislators have failed to protect the vulnerable and must now live with the consequences of their awful decisions.