South Australia’s 17th and final attempt to successfully pass voluntary euthanasia laws came after one final amendment on retirement villages was approved.
Liberal MLC Stephen Wade tabled the amendment stating that retirement villages cannot prevent a doctor coming into their facility to discuss Voluntary Assisted Dying with one of their residents.
The same requirement was already in place for aged care facilities.
The Bill’s passage marks the end of more than 26 years of parliamentary debate on the matter, with South Australia now the fourth state to legalise voluntary euthanasia after Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia. Queensland will be next.
There are 70 safeguards to prevent coercion or wrongful death.
To be eligible for VAD, a patient must be diagnosed with a terminal illness that will cause death within six months or a neurodegenerative disease that will cause death in 12 months, have their decision-making capacity verified by two independent medical practitioners, and have made a request for VAD on five separate occasions. A doctor cannot raise the option of VAD with a patient, and the patient must be experiencing intolerable suffering that cannot be relieved.
Amendments included allowing private hospitals and individual practitioners to conscientiously object to the administering of VAD and refer patients requesting VAD to other health providers.
“The impact on nurses and carers at the bedside of the terminally ill is all too raw. We are the ones who hear their cries for an end to the suffering, powerless to act, heartbreaking as it is to witness,” said the SA branch of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation.
