SW News:

As more Australian states are seeking exemption from a federal ban on accessing telehealth for euthanasia, close to one thousand health professionals, including doctors and leaders in geriatric and palliative care, have come together to oppose it. 

Advocates of euthanasia and Aussie states are seeking the repeal of the federal ban on using the phone or the internet to counsel or encourage suicide or suicide methods when it comes to voluntary assisted dying. Euthanasia advocates allege that the federal prohibition denies access to voluntary assisted dying for patients in the hinterlands who have limited access to doctors and specialists. 

With the issue about to be discussed at the April 28 meeting of the Standing Council of Attorneys-General in Darwin under the leadership of Queensland with the support of several other states, 1000 medicos have brought out an open letter in The Weekend Australian saying that the move would create “great hazards and injustice”. The letter was also penned by senior officials in key professional bodies. 

In the letter, they said, “Further relaxation of criminal codes to facilitate telehealth for VAD assisted suicide would remove protections owed those vulnerable to suicide under duress and in need of palliative care, aged care and mental health services, especially so in regional and remote Australia.” 

“It is oversimplistic and in breach of a patient’s rights and owed dignity in healthcare to imagine competence, informed consent, lack of coercion, mental illness and comprehensive health care or palliative care needs can be adequately assessed using telehealth by VAD doctors.” 

John Obeid, a geriatric care specialist from New South Wales, who is one of the signatories, said that the proposed changes to the federal law would force regional patients to opt for voluntary assisted dying citing the lack of geriatric and palliative services in those areas. On the other hand, Roger Hunt, a South Australian palliative care specialist, said that while telehealth for voluntary assisted dying may not always be appropriate, it should be an option in other areas of medicine.