Voluntary euthanasia discussions begin in Queensland as WA government prepares bill

Submissions to the Inquiry into Aged Care, end-of-life and palliative care and voluntary assisted dying close on April 15.

This will be the first time Queensland Parliament has examined voluntary assisted dying.

Welcoming the announcement, the Clem Jones Trust and Dying with Dignity Queensland urged anyone with relevant stories to make a submission.

"This inquiry is a chance for everyone to have their say," said Clem Jones Trust chair David Muir.

"It is also a chance for a cross-party inquiry to make decisions on law reforms based on facts, not fictions."

The Clem Jones Trust, which is leading a campaign to have voluntary euthanasia legalised, was established with a $5 million bequest from the estate of the late former Brisbane Lord Mayor Clem Jones. 

Mr Muir said Queensland urgently needed law reform on voluntary assisted dying.

"Victoria has passed new laws and Western Australia is right now developing voluntary assisted dying laws," he said.

"We want to see new laws here in Queensland to give people wider options at the end of life."

Dying With Dignity Queensland president Jos Hall said parliamentary inquiries in Victoria and WA were told by their state coroners that about one person a week takes their own life because of a terminal illness leading to an irreversible decline in their physical health.

"The figures are likely to be similar in Queensland and a legal and well-regulated voluntary assisted dying framework could prevent such incidents," Ms Hall said.

"That proves the urgent need for voluntary assisted dying laws to be considered and hopefully introduced and passed here in Queensland as soon as possible.

"We should not wait until after the October 2020 state election."

CHERISH Life Queensland slammed Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk's inclusion of voluntary euthanasia in the wider parliamentary review into aged care.

Its vice-president Alan Baker labelled the inclusions as a "smokescreen" to divert attention from areas needing greater support, such as palliative care.

"We think that palliative care is under-funded," Mr Baker told The Senior in October.

"Palliative care is the true form of assisted dying. Euthanasia or physician-assisted dying is assisted killing".

In November, the WA Government announced it would introduce a bill to legalise voluntary assisted dying in that state.

Health Minister Roger Cook said the decision followed the recommendations of the Joint Select Committee on End of Life Choices outlined in its August report, My Life, My Choice.

The joint committee found that a protracted death from a terminal, chronic or neurological condition could have a devastating effect on patients and their families.

It also reasoned that for people with grievous and irremediable suffering, where death is a foreseeable outcome of the condition, voluntary assisted dying should be an option.

Mr Cook said the bill would be drafted in consultation with a panel of experts.

Labor members will be offered a conscience vote on the bill.

Voluntary euthanasia law reforms have failed in South Australia and NSW.

However, writing in the autumn 2019 edition of the Dying with Dignity NSW journal, president Penny Hackett describes 2019 as the organisation's "best chance" of having voluntary assisted dying laws introduced.

The organisation is supporting the Voluntary Euthanasia Party at the March 23 NSW election and Ms Hackett wrote that she expects another voluntary assisted dying bill to go before NSW parliament this year.

Ms Hackett said the organisation had determined that engaging in the political process was the best way to make MPs understand the overwhelming public support for voluntary assisted dying.

"All the recent surveys show support at well over 80 per cent across the country," she wrote.

Meanwhile, researchers from QUT's Australian Centre for Health Law Research say there is still much to be done to translate the Victorian laws into clinical practice.

Professor Ben White and Professor Lindy Willmott, whose long series of assisted dying research informed the Victorian act, said there were challenges ahead during the act's 18-month implementation period.

The professors, writing in the Medical Journal of Australia with co-author Eliana Close, said that under the Victorian act, for people to be eligible to seek assistance to die from the medical profession, they must:

BE an adult with decision-making capacity resident in Victoria;

HAVE an incurable disease, illness or medical condition that is advanced, progressive and expected to cause death within six months, or 12 months for neurodegenerative conditions;

BE suffering from that condition which cannot be relieved in a manner that the person considers tolerable;

BE seeking assistance to die voluntarily and without coercion.

Discussing the act in the Medical Journal of Australia, Professor White said eligible people could either be prescribed a voluntary assisted dying substance to administer themselves, or if they are physically incapable of doing so, a doctor could administer it.

"A number of projects are underway to develop clinical guidelines, models of care, medication protocols and training for doctors participating in VAD," Professor White said.

"These will have major implications for doctors and other health professionals, including those who choose not to facilitate VAD, as well as patients, hospitals and other health providers."

Ms Close said converting legal standards into medical practice was a known challenge in health law and regulation. "For example, doctors and other health professionals are prohibited from initiating VAD discussions with patients, so clear guidance is needed on how to clinically implement this legal prohibition yet maintain meaningful end-of-life discussions with patients."

She said another challenge was supporting and managing conscientious objection.

"Some doctors will make a global decision about providing VAD and others will make case-by-case decisions depending, for example, on the patient or level of involvement sought.

"While the legal right to conscientiously object is clearly stated, the VAD law itself does not establish a framework for respecting conscience."

Victoria's Department of Health and Human Services has produced a suite of information about the Voluntary Assisted Dying Laws, which come into force on June 19.

An easy-to-read overview includes background to the laws, what led to the law, who is able to access voluntary assisted dying, how it will work, the law's safeguards and support services.

Download the information sheets HERE