'Right to die' architect sparks Tauranga debate

Dutch physician Dr Rob Jonquiere speaks at a public meeting of the Voluntary Euthansia Society. Photo/Andrew Warner

Tauranga has been included in an international tour of the architect of voluntary euthanasia legislation in Holland.

Dr Rob Jonquiere, communications director of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies, was invited by the Bay of Plenty Voluntary Euthanasia Society.

In an interview last week with the Bay of Plenty Times Weekend, Dr Jonquiere said proponents of medically assisted dying were gaining traction and that voluntary euthanasia (legal in his country for more than a decade), and palliative care were not mutually exclusive.

Bay of Plenty Times columnist Garth George reignited the euthanasia debate when he likened it to murder in his column here.

"In the Netherlands, palliative care is integrated in the health care system. Medically assisted dying completes the continuum of end-of-life care."

Dr Jonquiere said about 70 per cent of people who request voluntary euthanasia in Holland never go through with it - either their requests are denied, or they die naturally.

"Knowing in the end there will be a process to be assisted to die in a dignified, humane way ... they could bear more suffering than they ever expected."

A recent Supreme Court ruling in Canada could provide more impetus for action in New Zealand.

Canada's highest court, earlier this month, issued a unanimous decision clearing a path for physicians to provide life-ending medication to competent adults with a 'grievous and irremediable medical condition'.

If we allowed assisted suicide, you have a situation that becomes very dangerous because it's much easier to kill a patient than to care for them.

Ken Orr

The Canadian decision struck down laws banning doctors from taking part in ending a patient's life. The court said current bans violated rights of life, liberty and security as protected by Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

New Zealand's VES is circulating a petition asking Parliament to investigate public attitudes toward the introduction of similar legislation.

Tauranga barrister and solicitor Antoinette (Toni) Brown, who sits on the national committee for End of Life Choice, said she hopes the Canadian court's ruling will encourage a New Zealand lawmaker to pick up the End of Life Choice Bill, withdrawn from parliament in 2013.

Brown said: "What the Supreme Court of Canada said is it's good to have a sanctity of life but it doesn't mean it's a requirement that all life be preserved at all costs. The sanctity of life has to be assessed by the person whose life it is."

Brown said most people with debilitating or terminal conditions lack time and energy to effect legal change.

"I personally, as a lawyer, would be happy to hear from anybody who'd want to bring a similar case in New Zealand under the Bill of Rights. It sends a clear message from a powerful court the Government has got it wrong."

Ken Orr, spokesman for New Zealand Right to Life, said his group was lobbying vigorously to ensure voluntary euthanasia remained illegal.

Richard Thurlow talking about anti euthanasia and the need for better funding for palative care.

Orr said Dr Jonquiere's message: "Is a threat to the most vulnerable in our community; the disabled, the aged and the mentally ill. Once we have the right to die it'll become a duty to die for the elderly in retirement homes, Alzheimer's patients, people with dementia ... If we allowed assisted suicide, you have a situation that becomes very dangerous because it's much easier to kill a patient than to care for them."

The New Zealand Medical Association opposes euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide.

The NZMA website states, "Even if they were to become legal, or decriminalised, the NZMA would continue to regard them as unethical."

Dr Jonquiere says Holland's medical association supports voluntary euthanasia.

"They've [the medical association] been at the basis of the formulation of protocol."

Waipuna Hospice medical director Dr Murray Hunt said: "I've struggled to see how the medical profession can attend that balancing act. This consultation, supporting the patient, for life, the next consultation, assisting that patient to die - I personally think that concept sits outside medicine."

It's the patient's right to have freedom from pain to best of the health community's ability to provide that.

Dr Murray Hunt

Dr Hunt says the region's growing elderly population (the Bay of Plenty Times this week reported Tauranga's retiree population will double within 30 years) and a 30 per cent lifetime chance of developing some form of dementia mean families and communities must continue discussing end-of-life care.

"In nine out of 10 patients, we have very good answers or approaches for pain control. There are patients with a broader context of pain - existential, psychosocial complexities. For them, it's increasingly challenging to achieve pain control, but we'll never stop trying. It's the patient's right to have freedom from pain to best of the health community's ability to provide that."

Waipuna Hospice chief executive Richard Thurlow said his organisation's mission was neither to prolong nor shorten life.

Thurlow hoped more government funding would give patients in the Bay of Plenty greater access to hospice care.

"Every year, more patients are on the books. It's sad, but it's a sign the right people are getting to us. Dying unsupported in this day and age shouldn't happen."

Dr Jonquiere said medically assisted dying was not about termination of life.

"It's about termination of suffering ... one of the major tasks of doctors given by the Hippocratic oath."

Quebec, last year, passed right-to-die legislation, making it the only Canadian province to allow the practice.

Five US states allow medically assisted deaths.