Legalising assisted suicide will make it open to abuse: HPCSA

THE Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) is of the opinion that if euthanasia or assisted suicide is legalised in South Africa, many unscrupulous doctors and health-care workers might abuse it.

Apart from this, the HPCSA said, many terminally ill people who did not really want to die, would feel obliged to have their lives ended as they might be a burden to their families. With the law on their side to do so, they might forge ahead as they would feel guilty not to.

This is according to counsel acting for the health professions’ watchdog in the preamble to the landmark case in which the court is being asked to legalise assisted suicide or euthanasia.

The government and the HPCSA are against the law changing in this regard.

Both Diethelm Harck, 71, who suffers from motor-neuron disease, and his former palliative care physician, Sue Walter, are adamant that terminally ill patients should be given a choice to die when the time comes.

Harck took the stand – virtually from his Western Cape home – for the third day in his application, together with his palliative care physician Walter, who suffers from multiple myeloma, for the law to change.

At present, the law bars doctors from assisting terminally ill patients to die.

Harck and Walter are adamant they want to opt for euthanasia or the assisted suicide route when they can no longer face life. They also want other South Africans to have this choice. While their legal challenge is due to only be heard later this year in the Johannesburg High Court, the pair are now testifying before a commissioner, as they are not sure what the future holds for them.

Harck, the first to testify, has been under cross-examination for two days by counsel for the government and that of the HPCSA.

Harck was questioned at length about literature being available on how terminally ill patients could end their own lives, if they wanted to, when the time came.

But Harck was adamant he wanted a doctor to administer a lethal dose which would kill him if he could no longer face life.

Advocate Adrian D’Óliveira for the HPCSA questioned Harck as to why he wanted to go this route.

But Harck maintained he did not know what the future held for him. “I don’t know for how long I will be able to take my own life. When the time comes, I want to make the choice to have a medical doctor assist me,” he said.

Harck stressed that while he loved life at this stage and “absolutely” did not want to die now, he feared that when the time came when he wanted to die, he would not be able to.

D’Oliveira pointed out that palliative medical specialists were also able to render terminally ill patients unconscious when the time came.

“No person needs to experience the type of pain you are afraid of … Thus there is no need to change the law to provide for assisted suicide,” the advocate said.

Harck, however, said palliative-induced unconsciousness was not always effective. He said it was his human right to decide whether he wanted to die when the time came. The primary decision should be with the patient, he said.

D’Óliveira also said the HPCSA would argue that if the court changed the law it would be open to abuse. People might feel pressured to choose euthanasia, due to family pressures.

On the other hand, people can be murdered under the guise of euthanasia and assisted suicide, by unscrupulous doctors acting in collusion with the HPCSA, DÓliveira said.

Thus, the HPCSA is in a very difficult position, the advocate said, as the law, if passed, could be abused.