Victoria to review end-of-life options
Victoria is setting up a parliamentary committee to look at the choices terminally ill people have.
A 10-month cross-party inquiry will hand down its report in coming weeks, which it has been suggested will include calls for the government to create an assisted dying regime for people who are suffering.
Premier Daniel Andrews last year said; “There is perhaps more public support for this change [allowing voluntary euthanasia] than there has ever been”.
This was evidenced in the inquiry itself, which received 1030 submissions.
About 60 per cent of those were from individuals and groups who wanted people to have more end-of-life choices and better relief from chronic pain and suffering.
Over 100 witnesses presented evidence to the inquiry, including medical specialists, legal experts, terminally ill people and their families.
Not all supported voluntary euthanasia, with some concerned people could feel pressured to end their lives if the law changes.
The Coroner's Court said suicides sometimes see terminally ill Victorians “taking their lives in desperate, determined and violent ways” to end terminal suffering.
During the hearings, Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation officer Mark Staaf was asked if euthanasia is currently practised in the medical system either “covertly” or “at the margins”.
“I think that has always been the case,” he said.
“I don't know any health practitioner – doctor, nurse or anyone else – who would be involved in deliberately killing people but they certainly want people to go off comfortably.”
Mr Andrews was asked about voluntary euthanasia last year, saying; “I don't support, at this stage... making the sort of change that some people would like to make, but I do readily acknowledge that there is certainly more momentum.”
The Legal and Social Issues committee is made up of three Labor MPs, three Liberal MPs and one representative each from the Sex Party and the Greens, and given the plurality of views, it is expected to produce one major report and possibly a ‘minority report’ to appease all involved.