Medical Professionals will Cope with Assisted Dying

Many New Zealand medical professionals are surprisingly supportive of Assisted Dying in appropriate circumstances. Last week Bev and I attended a presentation by Dr Philippa Malpas on the responses of 1000 Doctors and Registered Nurses to a fairly searching questionnaire.

Some of highlights of the results were:

Around a third of doctors and half the nurses “strongly” or “mostly” agreed that AD should be legalised in NZ—assuming proper protocols were in place

A small proportion of the doctors and nurses had already been directly involved in providing or administering a lethal dose of medication to help someone have a hastened death. 

Most wanted a range of measures to ensure their safe participation in legal AD.

There are enough medical professionals prepared to become involved should the law be changed and AD be permitted on a voluntary basis.

It was interesting that TVNZ gave air time to the Care Alliance to attack the research but refused to permit the researchers to correct the misrepresentation. Nevertheless Dr Malpas observed that the law will be changed, sooner or later.