Palliative care key
IT was recently reported that the first death under new voluntary assisted dying laws can now take place within days. Victoria is the first Australian state to introduce voluntary assisted dying.
The Victorian Health Minister, Jenny Mikakos, said the Government was expecting about a dozen people to take up the offer in the first year, with predictions this will increase to 150 annually in later years.
The minister went on to say: “We think we have struck the appropriate balance here to give people access to compassionate end of life care.” This being said, I remain strongly opposed to this legislation and fear that Victoria’s attempts at providing “compassionate end of life care” are deeply flawed.
It talks of a “contrived process” leading to death by a lethal injection. This is not palliative care, this is voluntary assisted suicide.
In my experience, appropriate palliative care is what is required so that a ‘good’ death can be achieved.
My own parents received palliative care in their last days and this gave me and it gave the family some comfort and I am sure it gave Mum and Dad the sense that they were surrounded by all the love they needed leading up to their last breath.
During those lucid moments I told them that I loved them and they me.
The whole idea of a lethal injection being administered sends a shiver down my spine in these circumstances and instead of enhancing human life, it would do the opposite.
The compassionate end of life care cannot find its genesis in poison, but the highest quality palliative care coupled with the human touch and lots of love.
Voluntary assisted dying is so clinical presuming that the dying are worth less than others. By allowing VAD it could lead to less care for the terminally ill and may even undermine the commitment of doctors and nurses to saving lives.
When someone gets old or sick, a society is surely judged by the way it makes provision to respond. I fear that euthanasia will discourage the search for new cures and treatments for those at the end of their lives.
While the search may prove cost-effective in the short term, the long term consequences will make us less human.
The key here is for governments to invest not in lethal drugs, but in the best quality palliative care available.
Euthanasia is not the answer and it never will be.
Victoria has paved the way not to a culture of life, but to a culture of death.
God help us if the other Australian states follow this so called “progressive” lead.
I am all for progress but not when it disrespects human dignity because that is what is at stake. MOST REV TIMOTHY J HARRIS, Catholic Bishop of Townsville.