Euthanasia debate

Legalised jurisdictions allowing Medical Aid in Dying (Maid) now include the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Canada, and at least seven American states.

The New Zealand Nurses Organisation (which has about 45,000 members) now has a position statement which says that they ‘‘advocate for individuals to have the option of assisted dying’’.

The Australian Nursing Federation say that ‘‘we support legislative reform so that persons with a terminal or incurable disease illness that creates unrelieved, profound suffering shall have the right to die with dignity in a manner acceptable to them’’.

These bodies are the main nursing groups.

A recent study in the New Zealand Medical Journal shows that 67 per cent of New Zealand nurses favour legalisation of Maid. Doctors are more conservative (36 - 45 per cent in two studies). The New Zealand Medical Association (45 per cent of NZ doctors) has not surveyed its members.

The official Palliative Care (PC) and Hospice Organisations in New Zealand are opposed, but individual practitioners disagree.

However, it is now clearly established that even the best PC cannot solve all significant suffering (10-20 per cent of hospice patients have unbearable suffering as they die in Australia) and 1500 of the submissions to the New Zealand Parliamentary select committee described bad deaths.

Jack Havill

Hamilton