Why is the NZ Nurses Organisation Supporting the Killing of Patients?

Right to Life is very concerned that the NZ Nurses Organisation has abandoned its ethic to care for it’s patients and has now come out in support of doctors killing their patients or assisting in their suicide. The NZ Nurses Organisation should be at the frontline defending the lives of their patients against the threat of euthanasia and a culture of death. It should also be defending the ethics of the nursing profession which respects the sanctity of life of their patients. The Organisation has produced a chilling document titled, “Guidelines: Professional Challenges- Assisted dying position statement.” The Nursing Council has the role to protect the health and safety of the public. Why then have they chosen to remain silent in response to the threat of euthanasia supported by the Nurse’s Organisation. to the most vulnerable members of our community; the aged, the disabled and the seriously ill?

The nursing profession has the well earned trust of the community based on the knowledge that they will respect the sanctity of life of their patients and will do no harm. The Organisation is unwittingly undermining that trust which is essential for our public health service. Who would enter a hospital if killing you could be a treatment option? Would we place our elderly family members with confidence in a retirement home knowing that the nurses employed there are prepared to assist them in suicide or give them a lethal injection to kill them?

Nurses must be trustworthy and maintain the public’s trust as carers. They will lose it if they choose to become involved in killing patients.

In producing the above document, the Organisation is contravening the profession’s own ethics which state;

“Nurses are privileged in their relationships with health consumers. Nurses need to establish trusting relationships with health consumers to effectively provide care that involves touch, using personal information, emotional and physical support, and comfort. Health consumers need to be able to trust nurses to be safe and competent, not to harm them and to protect them from harm. They need to trust nurses to work in the interests of their health and well-being, and promote their interests. Nurses must be trustworthy and maintain the public’s trust in the nursing profession.”

The Organisation is deceiving its members and the community it serves by euphemistically calling killing, “Assisted Dying.” Euthanasia is about killing and it is certainly not health care. Why then, are they deliberately hiding the truth which is that they are actually now in support of assisted suicide and homicide, both serious crimes. It should be abundantly clear that when a doctor or nurse gives a lethal injection to a patient with the purpose of killing the patient this is murder, it is not a health service.

In the event that the Crimes Act was changed to legalise these crimes, ultimately applicants for nursing would be required to give an undertaking that they were prepared to kill patients or assist in their suicide. There would be no place in the profession for those who believed in the sanctity of life ethic.

Right to Life asks that all members of this NZ Nurses Organisation protest this move and protect our nursing profession from a culture of death.

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