Voluntary Euthanasia Expert adds weight to calls for law change

A visiting Belgian medical expert says New Zealand would be wise to adopt laws to control physician assisted dying if it is to put an end to the clandestine practices currently going on to help the terminally ill in this country.

Professor Jan Bernheim, an oncologist, was among the founders of Not Necessarily Terminal, the first palliative care organisation outside the UK, and pressed for the law change in Belgium 15 years ago which allows physicians to assist irreversibly suffering patients who want to die.

“New Zealand and Australian studies show that euthanasia is practised here in the dark, as it was in Belgium before the law change in 2002. It is uncontrolled and liable to abuse. In Belgium we’ve put an end to the clandestine practice, and because of the openness of the whole process, abuse of the dying patient is much less probable now that it is legalised with strict controls and peer review in place.” The law also protects caregivers from undue prosecution.

Professor Bernheim says prior to the law change in Belgium, dying patients who requested euthanasia with the knowledge of their families or nursing staff were less likely to get it because doctors were worried they could be charged with murder if someone who knew about the request objected to euthanasia.

He says that ironically, before the law, dying patients with intractable suffering who did not request euthanasia were more likely to get their suffering shortened paternalistically by doctors. The legislation put an end to this sad paradox.

Professor Bernheim says New Zealanders should not be afraid of changing the law to regulate euthanasia. Those who object to it for personal religious or philosophical reasons will be respected, but should not impose their views on others. He says there would be strict controls in place and that the best control is openness, allowing peer review and control. Those who choose voluntary euthanasia have to be of sound mind, not coerced, beyond effective further medical help, repeatedly ask for assistance to die, and have at least two physicians’ consent. Each case must be reported for review by an expert independent controlling body.

There is a similar law in the Netherlands and since 2016 Canada has adopted the Belgian model of integral end-of-life care, namely euthanasia embedded in palliative care.

The Belgian law relies mainly on palliative care teams to administer euthanasia (74% of physician-assisted deaths) but Professor Bernheim says this does not cause a wave of deaths. “It is for those who are already dying. In Belgium, voluntary euthanasia is just 4% (about 2000) of all deaths each year. As many people say, we do this for our pets when they are terminally ill. When people are suffering unbearably it is what any good physician would do.”

While Professor Bernheim said there were initial concerns from some of the religious groups in Belgium, since the law change a number of those have come around. “The Catholic order of congregation who run psychiatric care for a long time refused to allow euthanasia as part of their doctrine – they have now adopted it, seeing how the model works.”

And Professor Bernheim’s message to our Catholic Prime Minister, Bill English, is: “He can have a serious look at what his brethren in Belgium do and I think he might see that this is compatible with modern Catholicism.”

Professor Bernheim is in New Zealand for a series of public talks around New Zealand entitled “Dying Well in Belgium”.

He has been brought to New Zealand by the Voluntary Euthanasia Society. Its president Maryan Street has set up an additional series of meetings to help health professionals understand the ramifications and how it works in Belgium.

ENDS

© Scoop Media