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

Under legislation designed not to offend Jewish law forbidding taking human life, machines will be utilised for withdrawal of treatment for terminally ill patients. A timer fitted to a patient’s respirator will sound an alarm twelve hours before switching it off. If stringent conditions are met carers do not have to override this automatic device and the patient is allowed to die. A 58 member panel of ‘religious, medical and philosophical experts’ came to a view that ‘a man [sic] would not be able to shorten human life but a machine can’. Advance directives will be the medium for accessing the law and stipulating patient choice where a terminally ill person is dependent on a respirator.

Reference: The West Australian 9th December 2005

Eight hundred British people are now registered with Dignitas, the Swiss clinic that helps the hopelessly ill end their lives; one hundred more than this since January this year. Four more Britons have recently carried out assisted suicides at the Zurich clinic. Dignity in Dying’s chief executive Deborah Annetts predicted that British membership of Dignitas could top 1000 by the end of the year.She stated that she was ‘shocked and saddened’ by the latest deaths but each case demonstrated the need for a change in British law. The most recent assisted suicides bring to 54 the number of Britons who have travelled to Zurich to end their lives.

Reference: ‘More Britons in assisted suicides’ Sunday, 17 September 2006 BBC News.

Oregon statistics

The journal Psychiatric News (1) states ‘in a remarkable medical and psychosocial experiment’ 246 people have used prescribed medication in Oregon to hasten their death over the last eight years. This represents 12 per 10,000 deaths. During 2005 ninety five per cent of patients died at home, but all had private health insurance and ninety per cent were enrolled in hospice care. Most of those who join the program eventually die of natural causes, but do so with the ‘psychological insurance that brings peace of mind’.

Reference: (1) Lieberman, J (2006) ‘Letter to the editor - Death with Dignity’, Psychiatric News, 41 (15) 29.