- LETTER TO ALL MEMBERS OF VIC PARLIAMENT 22/08/05 -

From the desk of Mary Walsh, 
Website: www.yourchoiceindying.com. Email address: choice@yourchoiceindying.com

Dear Member of the Victorian Parliament, (full name inserted)
A personal letter mailed to each Member as Representatives of all Victorians

Choice and Dignity in Dying

I'm not afraid of dying, and I don't want to stop living, but unfortunately, it will happen
With this in mind, I would rather focus on the possibility of a more humane death with medical
assistance, rather than one that is natural, but painfully drawn out.

An American study undertaken in 1995 of 9000 dying people established that half of them were in severe to moderate pain for the last 72 hours of their lives.
Most of us can imagine a situation where a hastened death is a viable alternative to long suffering. Five minutes in excruciating pain is too long, yet I've read an article that denied the patient sufficient painkillers on the basis "he may become unconscious," therefore unable to register the pain's intensity levels for the nurse. I, too have been metered out pain killers not ten minutes before the next dose was due, regardless of my distress. "Must stick to the rules, though!". Pain, resulting out of nerve damage following chemotherapy, can be extremely excruciating. I understand what pain can do to a person's wellbeing; I understand the joy of knowing it can be ended.

Repeatedly, as an activist for voluntary euthanasia, I have asked all Victoria politicians to help some of us by passing a law that will at least acknowledge the rights of the individual to have their Advance Directives or Living Wills honoured by the Medical Profession.

I suggest the following be given realistic consideration that allows 72% of Victorians to be heard.

1     Provide for those of us who do not hold a religious belief in God as Christians understand
spirituality to mean. Allow, also, for those Christians who support the concept of euthanasia. 

2     Amend the Medical Treatment Act 1988 Preamble which states "to ensure that dying
patients receive maximum relief from pain and suffering" to read "even if palliative treatment results in a hastened death". (Don't keep them conscious so as to monitor their pain!)

3     Advance Directives or Living Wills should have legal status in Victoria ensuring a patient's
last wishes are honoured by the medical profession regardless of their own religious views. We say "Victoria, The Place to Be", but Queensland is actually a better "Place to Be" for the elderly and infirmed who want their Advance Directive to be the only criteria for their wellbeing.

4     A Register of Advance Directives could be maintained by the Voluntary Euthanasia Society
of Victoria, funded by the Government, and updated to the Hospitals systems by Government. Education would be ongoing through their correspondence. I had previously suggested the Medicare card should be encrypted with the details of the Advance Directives, or a Register attached to the Organ Donor Register thereby ensuring continuity throughout all hospital records.

5     I had asked for a "Do Not Resuscitate" notation to be placed on my records in a Catholic
Hospital. I was told that it was "not that simple". Why can't it be that "simple"'? I am neither stupid nor depressed. I have a good understanding of the Medical Treatment Act 1988 yet it seems to be to be a "toothless tiger", the compliance of which, patients are left at the mercy of the medical profession as a whole.

Having raised issues of Advance Directives I would seek further clarification on another matter. I've read in the Age, August 1st 2005 that the Federal Government is now going to set up an Ethics Working Party to "consider brain damaged patients", probably as a direct result of the Public Advocate's actions for releasing Maria Korp from "life".
From my close observation of the Senate Hearings on the Suicide Related Materials Law coming into effect in January 2006, I can just imagine what form any further legislation will take with regards over riding the States' initiatives for Brain Damaged Patients.

I will forever hear Senator Abetz advising the Right to Life Campaigners telling them, to ensure they place themselves very well, within a group, in order to achieve the desired outcome. Who will know if the people involved in the Ethics Workshop will not already have their Agenda mapped out by their religious beliefs? And who can argue with another's "faith"? Not for themselves, but for me!

I can't help but be cynical now about how my Governments work for me in this current climate of the religious right having the ear of our most esteemed law makers. But what of the rest of us in society used to the security of a secular government? Governments are needed for our bodily needs, and faiths should be left to the various denominations the individuals may embrace. Choices!

 As Jean Davies, Chairman of a VE Society said many years ago "As mankind developed it was natural that early man should have been awestruck by the power of the sun and wind, puzzled by sudden illness and the arbitrariness of accidents, and should have attributed it all to the activity of a supernatural being. Men then had a chance of controlling events by pleading with, pleasing or bribing this powerful figure. Few people now, it seems to me, interpret the world and how they should behave in it, in religious terms. They certainly don't talk or behave as if they do.

Ms Davies goes on to say "When we die that is the end of us, in my view. It will be exactly like being asleep or unconscious, but without ever waking up. As far as I am concerned after my death will be the same experience as before my conception, i.e. nothingness.

The world and the people in it fill me with wonder, delight and satisfaction, as well as the occasional grief and exasperation. They are enough for me; I don't need anyone to worship or pray to, and I certainly wouldn't want to live for ever." End of quote...

My questions being addressed to my elected representatives are as follows:

1     What procedures are in place to prevent the Federal Government over riding State Health
Laws? ($110,000 fine for talking suicide methods on a telephone is the classic example!)

2     How can the general public be reassured, that a religious point of view does not takes
precedence over a medical one?

3     How does 'one justify "death" for the purposes of a potential organ donor being brain dead
and therefore suitable to turn off all life support systems including nutrition, within hours, yet has a major problem with someone maimed and unsuitable for organ donation being held over for months (one case I heard of was for seven years). Maria Korp was an extremely lucky woman having a Public Advocate of Julian Gardner's courage and conviction in the face of a hostile R TL campaign.

Thank you for the time taken to consider the points I have raised

Mary Walsh 
August 22, 2005

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