Widower thanks euthanasia doctor
SHORTLY before sharing tips on how best to die with a couple of hundred Gold Coasters yesterday, Philip Nitschke was approached by a man he’d never met but whose life he had touched greatly.
It was the widower of one of the women who sought his knowledge to take their lives in a triple suicide at Ephraim Island in June.
“He explained who he was and I just thought ‘Oh, hell’,” said Dr Nitschke, the euthanasia campaigner who was at Robina Community Centre to host a workshop for his end-of-life advocacy organisation Exit International.
“It’s always emotional (meeting the bereaved) and sometimes the emotions aren’t very positive. Sometimes you get quite hostile receptions … but he was very friendly, very supportive.
“He said he wanted to thank me and that touches me a lot … when things have gone well — and this (case) seems to have gone very well — people are often relieved to know the person they cared about has had the peaceful ending they wanted.
“That brings a lot of gratitude and he seems to fit into this one.”
In late June, Michael Lister returned from shopping to find 54-year-old wife Heather had gassed herself to death alongside her 78-year-old mother, Margaret, and 53year-old sister, Wynette.
It was later revealed the trio, who were all suffering medical conditions, had been members of Exit International for about a year, sought instructions on how to die and obtained lethal nitrogen from a “home brewing” company that only sells nitrogen canisters to people who are older than 50 and never been diagnosed with a mental disorder.
While Mr Lister declined to comment for this story, Dr Nitschke said the women were thorough in preparing for their deaths.
“They researched it so well,” he said. “I went through our records and could see the emails we’d been sharing back and forth and it seemed there was good communication between the family.
“What’s unusual is the three of them did it together … we’d never had a triple suicide before. Even doubles are rare but we’ve had three this year where couples have taken their lives together.”
Dr Nitschke said he was at his home in Amsterdam when he learned of the deaths.
“We put the name in our database and it all just came out — the email trail,” he said.
“Then the Queensland Police made contact … I said I’d be (on the Gold Coast) on these dates but they haven’t made contact. I think once they saw the (email) notes, there was no question of legality. The women knew what they were doing and suicide is not a crime.”
According to Exit International’s e-Deliverance publication, Heather had been suffering early onset dementia, Wynette had major brain issues from an earlier accident and their mother was suffering “the usual health conditions of a woman of her age”.
“Rather than seeing this multiple family death as a tragedy, Exit prefers to see it as an example of rational suicide,” the article read.
“Each woman took responsibility for the planning of her own death, at a time and place of her choosing. A peaceful death is everybody’s right.”