 South
Australian Voluntary Euthanasia Society (SAVES)
The VE Bulletin Excerpts
'No
price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself' Rudyard
Kipling
Vol 19: No 2 July 2002
The Duty of Care
This is a short excerpt of an article
by Dr Richard Chaney 'Giving Patients the Right to Die' Australian Doctor
11 May 2001. (Australian Doctor is a weekly newspaper sent to GPs, prescribing specialists and senior RMO)
'The whole point of medicine is said to be the empowerment of patients to
take control, and to make appropriate decisions on questions affecting their
health and their life. How can this concept be consistent with our denial
of this fundamental right, in our refusal to contemplate euthanasia?
As soon as our own beliefs, religious or other, cloud our judgement
on the patients’ rights within their own health-belief system, we stand to
be again accused of arrogance, of not listening, of failing again in exactly
the way that has driven so many patients to alternative practitioners.
And what does 'care’, in duty of care, mean, if not the delivery of services
which alleviate suffering and allow the patient the dignity of choice?'
(emphasis added…Ed)
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