- LETTER TO HELEN SHARDEY (Shadow Minister for Health) 03/06/06 -
Ms Helen Shardey, MP
Member for Caulfield
Shadow Minister for Health
Suite 1/193 Balaclava Road
Caulfield North, 3161
Dear Ms Shardey
REF: CHOICE AND DIGNITY IN DYING
Thank you for your letter dated May 26, 2006 which is the standard type form letter that I have received many times over from Politicians of both persuasions over the past couple of years.
Perhaps I need to clarify my position a little more succinctly as you use the terminology of euthanasia when I use choice and dignity in dying. Patient directed dying, in fact.
The difference please let me explain is not about putting a needle into a patient’s arm and them dying immediately. My activism is about having the Living Will or an Advance Directive empowered by the Law. The Medical Treatment Act 1988 is good legislation but its “due process” is dependent on the health care worker’s compassion which can be influenced by religious beliefs of which I personally do not hold. Death may result sooner rather than later, but as the death is inevitable in any case nothing is to be gained by the enforced continued, without quality, life.
Currently a Christian Right to Life doctor or nurse may, and in fact sometimes does, put their religious belief in the sanctity of life before the comfort of the patient. Some believe pain and suffering is a spiritual testing time. I do not share these views and do not want my end of life options influenced by such people. Because I am an Activist involved within the community I know the stories. No one has been charged for failing to comply with the patient’s needs because death has been inevitable and the relatives can’t bear the pain of litigation after the event.
I want choice for the individual patient, not the relatives who many times cannot agree among themselves, or the health care workers. The Queensland Government has worked it out already so perhaps Victoria could learn from them.
Because your position currently is that of the Victorian Shadow Minister for Health, I have been asking both personally and on my website what your vision is for the treatment of the chronically and terminally ill patient who wishes for a hastened death by means of withholding medical treatment. Eg the nurse giving my friend his medication because his wife demanded he take it and being too ill to argue did so. I witnessed the nurse complying with the wife, not the patient.
The wife had told me he’d recently refused it and she wouldn’t allow that. This is after five strokes and he still lives on, only now he may have cancer as well! And yes, an ambulance would take him to Peter Mac! I am asking for a Position Statement please with which to inform people of the Liberal Policy if any. I do know what Labor’s position is, so I am very apolitical when I walk the streets for signatories with promoting Legislative change. The dialogue has been given considerate and comprehensive cover for the past thirty years, now positive action is needed.
Which Party can I promote to those who find themselves with serious medical conditions affecting their quality of life within the next election period? - Where education, transport, tollways, long term health issues, toxic waste dumps, is secondary to their immediate needs of securing a peaceful death in the knowledge their views will be respected under law.
Mary Walsh
www.yourchoiceindying.com
June 3rd, 2006
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