Good morning Ms Coote,

I am hoping with the upcoming election, that the Liberal Party will commit itself to a Physician Assisted Dying legislation which will not be manipulated with the same crudeness as the last attempt for the rights of 85% of Victorians to be considered in Victoria’s Parliament.

I am hoping the Liberal Party who always prides itself on provided for the autonomy of the individual, to know what is best for oneself, whether in life or business skills, will continue in end of life matters also.    Allow us to be the adults we are!

The current method of avoidance by government is neither helpful to the suffering individual or their relatives – and not to the taxpayers who are becoming more reluctant to leave their end of life choices to governments.    Financially the State will be crippled by the costs of an unproductive chronic and ageing population and while choice is not for everyone – I believe legislation should provide the right for choice for those of us who want it!.    Pro Choice should have equal rights to Pro Life in the same way we have equal voting rights!

85% of Victorians have indicated they want the Medical Treatment Act updated and upgraded to take into account modern medical technology which is robbing us of the option to die when nature would allow us to without intervention.

I am campaigning quite seriously against any politician who does not provide for choice and I am writing now in the expectation that politicians make themselves aware of the seriousness with which we activists view voluntary euthanasia as a human right, which is already given to animals by law!

Thank you for your time,

Mary Walsh

I’m wondering, Ms Barker with the passing of time, whether perhaps you have come to reconsider your views on the Physician Assisted Dying Bill which failed to move forward because of manipulation of the democratic process.

I am wondering whether in a State which is being overwhelmed by an aged and ailing population what you see you Victoria Labor Party doing in terms of practical forward thinking to combat the concerns of both prolonged suffering and financial strains.  Merely supplying more beds and buildings and departments, you’d realise of course, is not a satisfactory financial plan really.   Already there are strong indications that geriatric care is not high on the priority list of career moves for the health care worker.   I have yet to meet a happy resident of a nursing home in the later stages of life.

What is your government’s policy to provide for the future needs of an increasing aged population.?

I am wondering whether you avail yourself to the opportunity to visit nursing homes with the same care and attention you apply to schools?  Do you see the end of life with the same caring compassion that you heap on the primary school kids?

Why will the State government not consider PAD or self administered help as a logical extension to combating the incessant drain on the public purse, without any productivity gain for government or compassionate relief for the patient?   My children pay exorbitant fees to maintain the health of their children, because the children’s hospital waiting lists are ridiculous and yet the Brack/Brumby government persists in stalling effective legislation to ease the financial burden of maintaining congealing and shrinkage dying.

I will work actively against any politician who does not support choice for the individual, for the right to have choice for a good death, regardless of past loyalties which proved to be so one sided as to be insulting my passion in this regard .

I look forward to your responses to my musings, because we both know this problem will not go away.  85% of Victorians want change, and it imperative that people understand that vital word voluntary euthanasia – choice for the individual.

Mary Walsh

PS interesting times ahead in this household!

Please note the following time correction relating to the message below:

Catherine will meet interested people at 9.45am, a quarter of an hour before the service begins at 10am.

Dear Members

DWDV members and friends may be interested in this address, by the Rev Dr Francis McNab of the Collins Street Uniting Church and one of DWDV’s Ambassadors for Law Reform, this coming Sunday 11 April.

The address, which is part of the Sunday church service, is titled ‘ Look for a Good Life, Decide on a Dignified Death’

Venue:  St Michael’s Uniting Church, Collins St (on the corner of Russell Street).
Time:    10 am, Sunday 11 April.

Catherine Le Maistre, who is a member of St Michael’s congregation and a DWDV member, has offered to meet anyone interested, particularly those who are not regular St Michael’s attenders, by the large notice board in front of the church at 10.45am.  She will be wearing a name badge.
Thank you very much Catherine.

All are warmly welcome.

Regards
Judith Hoy
DWDV Member Communications

The Steve Guest Rally will be held on the steps of Parliament House, Spring Street, on Wednesday 14th April.

Steve Guest was a journalist and and an outspoken advocate for law reform regarding choice in dying. He died at a time of his own choosing in 2005.

You are invited to bring a photo of a departed loved one to hold during the rally, to add to the visual impact of the occasion.

There will be speakers.

All are welcome, at 12.30pm for a 1pm start, till 2pm

We look forward to seeing you there.

Judith Hoy

DWDV Member Communications

Dying With Dignity Victoria, Inc.    Reg. No: A0006974B    ABN: 80 591 186 892
3/9 b Salisbury Avenue, Blackburn, Victoria 3130
Web: www.dwdv.org.au Email: dwdv@dwdv.org.au
Phone: (03) 9877 7677    Fax: (03) 9877 5077

In the Good Weekend of the Age dated March72, in her “Up Front” “Your time starts now”….Jenny Brockie, presenter of the SBS Insight Program advised readers that the hardest thing she’d ever done was “watch the way my mother died”……..no further details are provided.

That too was the hardest thing I’d ever done in my life!….I had a choice!  She’d been suffering some years with emphysema, spondylolysis, a bit of arthritis, and to top it all off, gout!   My mother enjoyed a beer or three and we’d thought she’d do her liver as well.   She eventually died of a stroke which took two weeks to eventuate.The two longest weeks in my life, and highs and the lows of expectations that things would revert to normal, following the latest crisis.   Others watch their mothers over months, weeks or years!  In fact the man in the (Prince Henry) hospital waiting room told me that his mother had the same conditions as mine and had remained in a vegetative state for two years after of the initial stroke.

I found the hours, the days, the two weeks almost intolerable.   Her blue eyes were opened but unseeing, her tongue lolled out of the side of her lips, her face was red, glistening with an almost unshed sweat….It was frightful!….She was already brain dead because she had been revived by the ambulance drivers at least twelve to fifteen minutes after her heart had stopped beating!   I was so very grateful to them at the time, but I learned that mother nature has a purpose for allowing us to die when she’s ready!  Everything else is a fake of what living a full life is intended to be.   Stella would never have wanted to live in the manner I was watching her die slowly anyhow…..eventually nature was kind and no heroic treatment was to save her body from further decay.

One of the reason why I held so much respect for Lesley Martin, the New Zealand woman who went to goal for assisting her mother, was because she put her mother’s needs above her own.   I didn’t do that, even while I seriously considered pulling mum’s life support machine away from the wall….I chose instead to consider my daughter’s need to pass her HSC that year to enable her to take up nursing.  I knew that her mother facing trial and manslaughter charges would not be conducive to a good enough mark to be accepted into the Royal Melbourne Hospital for training.  For years afterwards I felt like I had let my mother ‘down’ by not shortening the time, it took her to die.   I have no way of knowing if she was aware of my ideas as I contemplated the machinery, but I certainly know she would have approved!

Watching a loved one die badly is “one of the hardest things, many of us have done”, and it is well documented that the manner of a person’s death is much more memorable than most anything else that occurs within the prolonged dying process.      An assisted death, controls the distress for both the patient and their relatives for entirely different, but equally important reasons, compassion to relieve relentless pain and compassion that others don’t witness the distress of the dying process.

We don’t look like the TV pictures would have us believe…
Dying is not pretty ! “hair billowed out, talking or gasping out meaningful sentences about past memories, perhaps a little sleepy as we slip away”     We usually die with rats tails for hair, teeth sitting in a bowl, hallowed out cheeks, excruciatingly weary, sweaty,  thirsty!, soiling the bed, semi conscious, little small talk at all – and with no appetite or energy to care about food or people.    This is much more the reality of the average death following a chronic or terminal illness.  Unlike the TV dramas, we don’t come back in another episode  elsewhere the following week!  Dying is really hard work!

To live with the memory  that the hardest thing in your life as been to watch the WAY a mother dies should be the single most avoidable tragedy that children of the future can hope for, when asked the question what is “The hardest thing you’ve ever done!” .

The appropriate compassionate legislation would make the death of a parent, or child or just anyone we care about more bearable – while not a pleasant experience, at least one that helps us remember the good times before,  with more clarity,  than the death itself!!   How many of us have witnessed the death of a loved one and cried out “thank goodness, what a relief”……

It is human nature not to enjoy watching the pain of others, and while doctors may not want to aid an assisted death, making the necessary legislation to allow us to help ourselves with the appropriate medication would be a great leap forward to prevent such answers as Jenny Brockie and thousands like her….”Watch the way my mother died”!…….Closing her eyes peacefully from an overdose of barbiturates would not produce the same bad memories!

Forward: No prizes for guessing who I’d prefer.   It seems to me Lesley Martin is an extension of the Palliative Care method.  Her views express a desire to prolonging the dying process to its conclusion in much the same way.   That to me is not necessarily “dignity” whether in New Zealand or Australia!  I believe obviously, that a hastened death also has a place in legislative change,  in a number of choices currently being debated in Australia.

Lesley Martin says

Mrs Wallis was depressed and could still have decided not to take her own life, Ms Martin said. “In Dr Nitschke’s camp of thinking, there are no questions asked. If someone expresses the desire to end their life, he provides a method. And he also derives an income from that.”

The right-to-die movement was split between camps who wanted to pursue legislative reform and those who gave people information about euthanasia options, she said.

Dr Nitschke’s views would soon be redundant, Ms Martin said.

She was organising a conference in Wellington in October to discuss dignity havens. “They won’t be invited. Philip Nitschke’s made his name for being controversial and hijacking legitimate forums.”

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/3519679/Gloves-off-in-pro-euthanasia-camps

Gloves off in pro-euthanasia camps

By TOM FITZSIMONS – The Dominion Post

Pro-euthanasia groups are trading barbs after an American woman was charged with helping a woman in New Zealand kill herself.

Susan Wilson, 48, who lives in North Carolina, has denied helping Audrey Wallis, 49, to take her own life in 2007.

Police have charged Wilson with assisting suicide, but she may never be tried in this country because New Zealand’s extradition deal with the United States does not include the charge.

Australian euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke said Wilson had denied providing the lethal drug Nembutal to Mrs Wallis, or receiving $12,000 from her.

Wilson had provided information and “sat with her when she ended her life using helium”, Dr Nitschke said. She had been compensated $2000 for airfares and accommodation but denied being paid $12,000.

Dr Nitschke, dubbed “Doctor Death”, attacked right-to-die advocate Lesley Martin for bringing a complaint about Wilson to police.

“This is the first example of the police being employed by one faction of the right-to-die movement to pursue those with an alternative view.”

He also described Ms Martin’s idea of “dignity havens” – hospices that include assisted suicide options – as quaint.

But Ms Martin, head of Dignity New Zealand, said Wilson’s denial was implausible as she had talked openly about helping Mrs Wallis kill herself on a BBC film.

“I think it’s naive of anyone to think that someone would travel that distance and sit there and do nothing else. I think she’s probably quite a simple-thinking woman who just saw a quick way to make a quick buck.”

Mrs Wallis was depressed and could still have decided not to take her own life, Ms Martin said. “In Dr Nitschke’s camp of thinking, there are no questions asked. If someone expresses the desire to end their life, he provides a method. And he also derives an income from that.”

The right-to-die movement was split between camps who wanted to pursue legislative reform and those who gave people information about euthanasia options, she said.

Dr Nitschke’s views would soon be redundant, Ms Martin said.

She was organising a conference in Wellington in October to discuss dignity havens.

“They won’t be invited. Philip Nitschke’s made his name for being controversial and hijacking legitimate forums.”

In Wellington, Margaret Page, 60, has not eaten for 15 days after deciding to starve herself to death.

A spokeswoman for the St John of God home, where Mrs Page is a patient, said her condition was unchanged yesterday.

Footnote: I own two copies of Ms Martin’s book called “to die like a dog”.  I won’t pass them on to any one else, because I will no longer promote this woman’s work.  Once I thought she had an excellent grasp of what working towards the Right to Die platform actually meant.   Differing viewpoints but with the same fundamentally shared solid goal in mind.  What worked for one individual may not work for the other.   Many individuals in Victoria belong to both Exit International and their own State’s equivalent to DWDV. (Dying with Dignity Victoria).

Personally the hellium approach is not to my tastes but has worked well it seems for others.  It is about choice for the individual when the end stage of life becomes intolerable. Not promoting suicide at all, but just trying to empathise with methods people may adopt in the face of no legislation in place. Protecting individuals from what is a Russian roulette scenario  of being at the mercy of Right to Life proponents, either as an organisation, or as a health care worker.

Once Lesley Martin and Philip Nitschke were friends!  What happened?  Why the animosity displayed by Lesley consistently over these past years since her release from goal.   Lesley wrote the book and was responsible for her own incarceration, not Philip Nitschke.   Of course, he will use circumstances to promote public awareness of his views and that of Exit International which is made up of flesh and blood members who feel very strongly about options, in addition to legislation.  That’s just doing what is expected of him, in the same way DWDV promotes the legislative approach.    I too have a foot in both camps….I can’t think, that I will live to see the legislative approach come to fruition, so I need the additional insurance of ensuring a good death by keeping myself fully informed of the alternative options.

I’ve personally spoken to people who are prepared to pay $5,000 dollars for the necessary dose of Nembutal to aid an effective painless death.  Desperate people do desperate things.   There could be a fantastic black market for this drug, but the problem for the ‘pushers’ would be, their customer never return for seconds, unlike heroin.

I believe Lesley Martin’s view that Philip Nitschke’s motives are more about the money than the ultimate gift of relieving terminal pain, is an attempt to make herself look more acceptable to the ‘mums and dads’ in society and nothing to do with the reality of what does happen when people are assisted with suicide.

Philip Nitschke DOES NOT PROVIDE THE METHOD regardless of Lesley’s assertions!  instead he provides the information on what options are available.    With Lesley’s attitude, it seems that the decision making process is back in the hands of those who use their own ‘healthy disposition’ to make decisions which affect others who have no health left!!

Please set your tape machine for 12.50 am Wednesday Morning, on Tuesday night,(March 30)  SBS for the part two of Davor Dirlic’s documentary, Do Not Resuscitate.   It is a look into end life stages and how 3 people approach the prospect.    The documentary came about because of a concerted effort to introduce voluntary euthanasia into the Parliament,  and the wish to see it legalised by the Victorian State Government, for the sake of some 80% of Victorians, who want change to the Medical Treatment Act 1985.

Only the Greens Party have a Policy in place to address the issue which has been a battle for activists for some thirty five years.  Individual Labor and Liberals support the concept of a hastened death with physician assisted dying an option, but unfortunately the Right to Life people are relentless in tying to tell others how to live and how to die!    I don’t force my beliefs on them, but I do reserve the right to be extremely angry that the lawmakers allow bigots rights to endure over mine.   What makes their rights more right than mine, in LAW?
I’m hoping that financial constraints and a relentless onslaught of frail elderly population will force governments to acknowledge that some of us, don’t want life at ANY price foisted upon us, but rather a rational assessment about the quality of life one would prefer, over quantity,  prolonging the dying experience.   By choice, of course!   It makes sense in a win win situation to provide for voluntary euthanasia legislation – the chronic and terminally ill don’t suffer unncessarily to a bitter conclusion unless they choose to retain life at any cost – and the government does not have to fund the inevitable for years and years of nothingness, lying in bed or propped up in front of a TV, not seeing, not hearing, not comprehending, not knowing, in a vegetative state.

Start lobbying your State and Federal policitians now for your own “old age”….it is almost too late for many of us who can’t take the risk  that we’ll lose the opportunity for choice!   That we’ll join that vegetative state sooner than we could have imagined….modern medical technology being what it is….

Do you notice how medical stories are portrayed on television reality shows?  “How the patient has suffered a severe head injury but is lucky to be alive” that’s relative, of course, about who is meant to be the “lucky” ones here, the patient themselves whose capacity to be self sufficient is zero?, the relatives who nurse them for years worried they’ll outlive their carers? , or the Health Care Workers who have a job for life?

Apart from the drain on the public health purse, there is also the additional burden of sustaining the buildings and staffing costs, which will be overwhelmed as people have better choices for employment in the future.   Handling old people is labour intensive – it would pay the government handsomely to respect our wishes for choice and dignity in dying!!   And put a lot of people’s minds at rest at the same time…..

Letter in the Age dated March 27, reads:

As a doctor, I sympathise with Belinda Ramsay’s distress (Comment 25/3).  However, she is incorrect to say that in her mother’s situation an episode of “influenza” must be treated.

Perhaps a meeting with her mother’s GP would help ensure her mother is treated appropriately, and that measures her family and perhaps doctor feel are unnecessary are not used.

Most doctors might not be willing to assist in euthanasia, even if it was legal, but most doctors also do not feel comfortable unnecessarily prolonging life.

Sarah Abrahamson, Ringwood

Footnote: The doctor’s suggestion has merit.  What she is saying is to refuse any treatment that will sustain life.   I remembered too late when I received a pneumonia vaccine together with my husband.  I got carried away with the enthusiasm of the doctor in the presence of my husband who has every reason to enjoy a sustained life.   I realised too late that I ensured that my life would not be ended (well easily, anyhow!) by a disease that was once known as the friend of the elderly!

Of greater interest to me personally was Dr Abrahamson’s remarks that “Most doctors might not be willing to assist in euthanasia, even if it was legal”….      where then does that leave the suffering patient who will by that stage be in no condition to stand up and change either doctor or hospital?.  If it is a legal requirement that ensures a patient does not have the benefit of a hastened death because of the existing legislation, why can’t any legislation change towards a Physician Assisted Dying law cover the benefit of the patient to ensure compliance to the law, first and foremost for the patient’s comfort !

What possible hope has the individual to ensure the private attitude of a health care worker BEFORE it becomes a problem at death’s door!….

It seems to me that Doctors such as Dr Sarah Abrahamson may treat the needs of the patients based on their personal moral views, without the patient themselves being in a position to exercise their rights under law, should the legislation change anytime soon!

How can those in need receive the protection under law, in any easing of restrictions,  that should be their right, when existing laws are enforced with monotonous regularity!?

How can we ensure we get the ‘right’ doctor, in the ‘right’ health care facility?

I heard figures mentioned yesterday on television the aged care facilities are estimated to have to accommodate up to an additional 90,000 aged and dementia patients in the next ten years – while at the same time – health care professionals shield away from geriatrics as a preferred professional career move.

I’m great on forward planning, always have been!    What has the relevant government got in place to cover the future of an aged population in an environment where “no one” it seems “wants to end up in a nursing home!”….Our nursing homes are not like the ones we see in English ‘whodoneit’ movie, with people walking around majestic gardens and civilised dining rooms….you’re more likely to be told off for going to the dining room in your house coat….if you remain undrugged and upwardly mobile to begin with!

I remembered with my aged aunt how gullible I was when being told that my aunt had suddenly decided to take to her bed and remain basically uncommunicative until her death two years later.  I actually believed the staff when they reassured me that she had not been overdosed beyond any quality of meaningful life.   That it was the ageing process kicking in!  Rubbish!      She was blind, she had broken her hip, but she remained a delightful old soul until she was moved from one ‘nursing home’, being sold off,  to another!  She’d sing to me in her beautiful voice while shelling the peas for me when I was able to bring her home each weekend for perhaps three years before that final ‘resting place’, her bed!  She only choose that place because it was down the road from her home of twenty years!  Not a good enough reason to end up in a dump of a ‘nursing home’.

No wonder some of us panic at the thought of losing control over our end of life stage!

I was asked yesterday to define what steps I took to get myself well again in 1999 on being diagnosed with ovarian cancer.   It was a deep question to ask someone walking through a major shopping centre like Chadstone.  I had to think, because it isn’t so easy to explain in words….

I replied eventually by saying:    I likened the cancer itself to be a piece of fabric…very strong material like canvas or sailcloth, not easily penetrated (which cancer isn’t either).    I didn’t try to force my way though its impenetrable weave.  I nibbled at the corners…..I frayed the material (the cancer) until I could weaken the weave…..I started at outside and worked my way in very very slowly…….I didn’t want or need to think about the next year, or next month, or next week….at one stage it was clock watching for that five minute time lapse that would enable me to have my next dose of medication to relieve my pain and distress……. I found myself thinking in terms of half hours, hours and half days.  I broke down the strength of the fabric into manageable size for me to cope with on a daily basis….just one day at a time, for a very long time!

People use the word ‘courageous’ but it has nothing to do with courage and everything to with the ‘bloody mindedness’ to persevere in the face of overwhelming odds.  Courage implies the patient with cancer, has a choice. To be brave or a coward!   No one is ever a coward in the face of dealing with cancer.   People who stay alive and survive the cure are no braver than the person who decides that there is little point to stuffing up their quality of life by denying themselves further treatment.   Treatment which may prolong life but at a cost more dear, than they’re prepared to pay.

There is no choice!  You have an illness which must be addressed.  With the best intentions in the world, you may still die of the illness!  Attitude or wanting to live, is not a sufficient motivation to prevent your death, but for some of us, we’ll give treatment a go!

Much of your recovery relies on the ability of your health care workers.

What I do believe absolutely is that,  only the patient can do for themselves is to work and develop their attitude with how best to deal with the illness…..If you try a collection of ‘cures” you’ll probably make a number of people quite rich at your expense, and they’ll take your money and run.   They have no INVESTMENT in your wellbeing, here today and gone tomorrow.

“Positive” attitudes don’t work in the case of an illness, which has little respect for any body…. Learning to accept the reality of an imminent death is very very hard and stressful, particularly if you’re relatively young with family, grandchildren and a career…”You’re Needed!” your mind screams silently, “How will they get on without me”?  They will and they do!!  but the reality is that the world will still continue its path, with or without your presence.   I sat and cried for days with my trusty dog, Sandy, gazes forlornly at my stricken face and she never once told me to “get a grip on yourself Mary” “Think positive, its all in the mind”….”Take another pill”…
It is extremely hard to stay ‘rested’ when all the evidence points to the fact that you are in fact dying slowly over a period of six months or a year.   The fact I am still here 11 years later was not something that anyone assumed would be the outcome for me….At one point I was being “treated” to secure me another couple of years of life.

I marveled that I am still alive….but i suppose for the cancer to take hold of me, I have to sit still long enough for it to catch me again….. I live a very full life and interest myself in many social issues.

That ‘piece of fabric‘ has been well and truly shredded, but I don’t for one minute believe there won’t be another bolt of cloth somewhere in storage,  that will turn up eventually.  It is the nature of cancer to return elsewhere in the body and I found myself philosophical about the melanoma diagnosed last year…but that was only ‘cotton’ and easy to demolish its possibilities.

The manner of my death occupies my mind, much more than any returning cancer which I believe is inevitable.

As my nephew said at my initial diagnosis  “when the cancer cells arrived in Aunty May’s guts, they looked around and said “Christ what have we taken on here?  We’re out of here and fast!).   Helpful to have that sort of reputation on occasions eh?

Regarding the Do Not Resuscitate Documentary and my self rant in review, Judy sent this email:

“Stop beating urself up u r doing as much as humanly possible a staggering effort rub ur medal 4 reassurance.  Many things I had 2 say did not make the cut.  2 me the only silly thing u said was about a woman of 60 doing this what would have been the right age?

fond regards

j”

Thanks Judy, I needed a kick up the posterior to bring me down to earth.  It is done!  I do wish I had the personality that allowed me to let matters of great importance to me,  wash over my head more easily!

Yesterday a friend who rarely rings about anything rang to say, “He was so very proud to know that he could call me a friend” having watched the documentary Part 1,  at 1 am being unable to sleep.  We’d travelled down from Canberra together after attending the Exit Conference a couple of years ago (Rights of the Terminally Ill Legislation overturn memorial)…. I had watched as Dr Nitschke’s books (The Peaceful Pill) were burned by Philip and Fiona -  and I cried then as I felt we were being subjected to Nazi Germany type censorship.  A burning book is symbolic of so much meaning!   The companionship on the long drive home was just what I needed.

Another friend assured me, that where I’ve walked others will follow and keep up the pressure for change in the years to come.      “I just have to be patient”!!!    Yeah right!  like patience is my second name…….