VAD laws: As few as 17 WA doctors and nurses start training to help terminally end their lives

As few as 17 WA doctors and nurses have begun the necessary training to help terminally ill people end their lives, five days ahead of new laws coming into effect. The low uptake has raised fears among right-to-die advocates that some of the rules around WA’s new voluntary assisted dying laws, which begin on July 1, are deterring medics from getting involved. Just over 80 practitioners have signed up to access the online training that is required to offer VAD to patients, but data tabled in State Parliament has revealed few of them are doing it. The uptake has been even lower in regional WA, with no practitioners at all in the Kimberley and Goldfields-Esperance regions requesting VAD training. Steve Walker, president of Dying with Dignity WA, said he believed doctors and nurses were being put off by additional requirements, which were revealed only recently, that they had to meet to be approved to carry out VAD. “We reckon these requirements, as we warned them would be the case, are probably part of the explanation of why we have got numbers at the moment that are looking to be very concerning,” he said. The requirements include them having to work double the minimum clinical practice hours necessary to keep their medical registration, and having to provide two professional referees to vouch for them. “All of these requirements are disincentives or discouragements for doctors to go through the process,” Mr Walker said. “They place further hurdles in front. You’re potentially excluding or at least discouraging people who might be semi-retired, women with children who work part-time who might be the very sorts of people who are best suited in many cases to do this work.” Mr Walker said in Victoria, which introduced VAD in 2019, only a third of those who signed up for the training went on to complete it. Under the new laws, doctors have to provide information about WA’s VAD process if a patient raises it, whether or not they are willing to do it for the patient themselves. Sean Stevens, WA chairman of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, said a lot of GPs were not fully aware of their obligations under the Act, with many focused on the COVID19 vaccine rollout. “Not many of your patients will ask for it (VAD) so if you did do it, you would be seeing a lot of patients who aren’t your regular patients, which most GPs would find challenging,” he said. “Also, there’s a lot of paperwork, and GPs are so busy. “If you’re only going to be seeing one or two (VAD) patients a year, it’s several hours worth of education to be able to do it properly. So most GPs would be more comfortable referring or recommending somebody who does it on a more regular basis.” Health Minister Roger Cook said significant consultation and consideration had gone into the development of the eligibility criteria for practitioners wanting to provide VAD. “It is vitally important there are strong safeguards in place and the practitioners involved in VAD are suitable,” he said. Mr Cook said he was confident anyone wanting to access VAD in WA would be able to through the Statewide Care Navigator service.

VAD laws: As few as 17 WA doctors and nurses start training to help terminally end their lives

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