SAVES is not affiliated with Exit International / Dr Philip Nitschke and opposes the public availability of a 'peaceful pill'.

As readers of our Fact Sheets will know, Oregon is the first state in the USA to have enacted legislation allowing medically assisted suicide. It is available to the terminally ill (those with less than 6 months to live) under very strict conditions. It came about after two referendums and in a climate of intense political lobbying that still continues.

The law has been in effect for nearly a year and in August 98, the Oregon Health Division issued its first report on the functioning of the Oregon Death with Dignity Act. The following is a shortened version of an article in the Oregonian newspaper of 19 August:

Ten Oregonians -- five men and five women -- have obtained lethal prescriptions since the state's physician-assisted suicide law went into effect nearly 10 months ago. Eight used the medication to die. The other two died of their illnesses.

The much-anticipated report is the first official public accounting of what the practice of assisted suicide looks like in Oregon: medical leaders urged caution about drawing too many conclusions from such a small sample.

In order to protect the confidentiality of individual patients, the Health Division waited until it had a "critical mass" of assisted suicide cases but decided not to wait until 10 people had actually used the prescriptions to die.

"There are people who get these prescriptions and don't use them," said Dr. Katrina Hedberg, deputy state epidemiologist with the Health Division. "That's why we wanted to release the information this way." Nine primary physicians wrote the prescriptions for the 10 patients, the report said. That fact appears to contradict predictions by opponents that one or two physicians would become "death doctors," Hedberg noted.

All patients received medical evaluations by a second doctor to confirm a terminal illness prognosis and all complied with a mandated 15-day waiting period between first and second requests for a lethal prescription, the report said. Of the 10 who died, all were Oregon residents; their average age was 71. One had heart disease; the others had cancer. Of those taking lethal medications, the number of days between getting the prescription and death ranged from the same day to 16 days, for an average of two days. The two patients who obtained a prescription but didn't use it died of their illnesses an average of 10.5 days after getting it.

Dr. Nancy Crumpacker, a Tualatin oncologist, said she thinks two of her cancer patients were included in the report as the two who died before using the medication. She said a Health Division official interviewed her about both cases after the patients died from their illnesses.

Crumpacker said the pain of both patients was well controlled. She said one of the patients, a woman, wanted the prescription as a way out if she became ill enough to have to go to a nursing home. The woman had hospice care and never decided to use the drugs. The other patient, a man, told Crumpacker he would use the prescription rather than going back into the hospital, where he felt he would be unable to enjoy his family.

A big issue among opponents during the campaign to repeal the assisted suicide law was the notion that some patients would die lingering, painful deaths and might vomit the medication.

Hedberg said that of the eight deaths by lethal medication, none reportedly suffered complications. It took patients an average of 40 minutes to die. In one exceptional case, it took seven hours. However, that patient was unconscious and "in no pain or distress or anything like that," Hedberg said. All of the patients fell unconscious within 20 minutes of taking the medication, she said, with an average lapse of five minutes.

The state Board of Medical Examiners investigate complaints of doctors who might not have followed the law. So far, no doctors have been disciplined.

Obviously, while there is not the slightest evidence of medically assisted suicide being misused, more time is needed to reasonably assess the legislation and introduce what changes are appropriate. However, in events vaguely reminiscent of the demise of the Northern Territory Rights of the Terminally Ill Act, intense lobbying is focussed in the federal parliament. The Lethal Drug Prevention Bill has been introduced which would authorise the Drug Enforcement Agency to revoke the narcotics licence of any doctor who performs euthanasia or assisted suicide. If such a Bill becomes law, count on endless legal challenges and further descent into what Derek Humphry has described as a "persistent legislative state"