X-Message-Number: 7042 Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 11:20:54 +1000 (EAST) From: (Kitty te Riele) Subject: Australia update The paper version of the SMH (but not the Web page) this morning (14/10/96) had an item on Dr Nitzschke travelling to the UK to argue for legalising voluntary euthanasia there. A British woman with motor neurone disease would like to use his computer-kit for euthanasia. Below is part of a feature on Dr Nitzschke, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 October 1996. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * PROFILE: PHILIP NITZSCHKE October 12, 1996 DEATH BECOMES HIM [....... deleted .........] [Dr Nitzschke] broke his ankle in a truck accident and it was while recovering in Darwin Hospital that he decided to study medicine: "I was so appalled by my treatment, the complete loss of control. I wanted to understand the culture better." He never really warmed to the mostly wealthy medical students at Sydney University. He lived in a squat, graduating aged 42. Through his after-hours practice, AusDoc, Nitschke has taken on unfashionable medicine. Many of his patients are homeless people, known in Darwin as "long-grassers". For years he has fought the NT Government's refusal to introduce a methadone program, and it has fought back, labelling him a publicity-seeker and a radical. But right now, Nitschke is receiving plaudits from conservative politicians for his stand on voluntary euthanasia, and he is surprising himself by quite enjoying it. "I'm getting right into it now; I'm wearing a tie every day," he says with a self-mocking tone. "It's amazing that you suddenly find yourself thinking the same as Jeff Kennett. How can this happen?" It happened on Sunday, September 22, the day he helped 66-year-old Bob Dent to die in his Darwin home, via lethal drugs administered by a laptop computer. Dutch doctors have been helping terminally ill patients to end their lives for 20 years under a complex series of regulations, and Australian doctors admit that it goes on furtively, but Dent's death was the first under legislation anywhere in the world. His plea for an end to five years of suffering with prostate cancer was hard to argue against, even for opponents of voluntary euthanasia, but his death has somehow challenged the nation's ethical philosophy. Terminally ill people now had the right to ask doctors to help end their lives. The quality of a person's life could take precedence over life's sanctity. Something profound had happened. Nitschke dissociates himself from the Australian Medical Association, which declares that voluntary euthanasia is unethical. He sees the body, which represents just under half of Australia's doctors, as elite and powerful, anxious to maintain control. All the same, he was scarred by the experience of helping a person to die. He felt like an executioner and wept when Dent's life finally ended. At the press conference to announce that the first person had used the law, he was no longer the strident campaigner, but softly spoken and humbled. [......... deleted ......] Nitschke believes Dent may have been the first and last to use the legislation. A private member's bill to overturn the law in Federal Parliament is up for debate this month, and there is a High Court challenge in November. NITSCHKE now doubts his own involvement with euthanasia: "I always thought euthanasia was a rather trivial issue that I got caught up in and then I got annoyed about [AMA opposition], and when I got annoyed it made me feel less like giving in. It is a freedom-of-the-individual issue, which I see as important, but in terms of the sum total of human suffering, it's a small issue. The number of people is small; it's not going to make much difference." If he doubts his own involvement, he is also disillusioned with the voluntary euthanasia movement, a loosely linked group of State-based associations. He says he will not be renewing his membership. He found them jittery and critical when he was facing constant rejections from doctors "too gutless" to help. (The law requires the signatures of three doctors, including a specialist and a psychiatrist.) Some advised him not to help patients under the law until the High Court brought down its decision. [.. deleted ....] He admires the "wisdom and cunning" of the architect of the NT's law, the former chief minister Marshall Perron, but says euthanasia supporters are a strange breed. "Their obsession with the one issue is to the point of an inability to be compassionate with, say, intravenous drug users. It's very disappointing to me that a group of people who are so very compassionate about one group in society, terminally ill people who want to make use of voluntary euthanasia legislation, are so uncharitable with any other vulnerable group." His relationship with the president of the NT Voluntary Euthanasia Society, Lynda Cracknell, is strained, but she will say little publicly: "We're here for the long haul and we can't afford to be dumping on each other ... Philip's strengths are also his weaknesses. Certainly sometimes he has made comments unwisely." [....... deleted ........] * * * * * * * * * * Kitty te Riele Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=7042