Nowhere was there point out that in NSW, in 2019 alone, there have been 101 suicides from individuals over 40 with a terminal or debilitating sickness. As an alternative, he opined that “a society is judged by the way it treats its most susceptible”.
And nowhere was there acknowledgement of the individuals whose struggling – in Palliative Care Australia’s personal phrases – can’t be relieved, “regardless of optimum care”. As an alternative, to those medically hopeless, he supplied “hope”. “Let this state be a beacon of hope”, he stated.
Having chosen to dismiss the proof, and the views of 80 per cent of us, it was laborious to not surprise who the Premier was chatting with, and who he’s really governing for?
A pointer to the reply was the presence in Parliament of Monica Doumit, Director of Public Affairs for the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney. She would have been happy to listen to the Premier repeat all of the Church’s speaking factors in opposition to assisted dying.
Make no mistake, this debate is about management and spiritual energy. Having misplaced the battle in each different state, the Church in NSW are decided to maintain management of our dying in God’s arms, somewhat than our personal.
Medical doctors of religion are equally decided. Not too long ago, representatives of Catholic Well being briefed MPs about “quantum advances in palliative care”, described as “game-changers” in therapy of the dying. They talked a couple of “new drug supply methodology” referred to as intrathecal care by which a catheter is inserted close to the spinal wire to allow ache reduction, delivering a high quality of life “inaccessible within the final century”.
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Ache specialist Dr Gavin Pattullo was fast to reply. “Some mistruths warrant correcting”, he wrote, explaining this “new methodology” had been round for 30 years, and helps solely a really small proportion of sufferers. “As highly effective as our fashionable medicine are, typically the ache simply is not going to go away”, he wrote.
Dr Pattullo is aware of this debate isn’t just about ache. It’s about struggling. He is aware of as a result of his spouse Venessa – additionally an completed physician – took her personal life at simply 42, after a 14-year battle with aggressive leukaemia and “numerous” painful therapies. “Her lungs had been destroyed by the therapies and a gradual merciless demise by asphyxiation awaited her.”
Venessa’s is one in every of many such tales. Take Judith Daley, dying of lung most cancers and power obstructive pulmonary illness. Regardless of the most effective palliative care, Judith faces demise by suffocation, drowning in her personal fluids.
Final week, she publicly challenged the Premier: “will you stand by and let me die like this”?
On Friday, he responded, providing her hope and miracles as an alternative.
For all its advances, palliative care doesn’t ship miracles. Hope doesn’t remedy terminal sickness. It’s unethical to drive somebody to endure in opposition to their will. By refusing Judith the selection that she and so many victims search, our Premier will not be restoring hope. He’s snatching it away.
Disaster help could be discovered at Lifeline: 13 11 14.
Andrew Denton is founding director of Go Mild, Australia
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