St John of God Clinical Dean sounds warning as WA Parliament considers euthanasia
By Anthony Barich
ST JOHN of God Hospital Subiaco’s Clinical Dean Dr David Watson will quit as a medical practitioner if the Voluntary Euthanasia Bill 2009 passes through WA Parliament.
Dr Watson, one of the most respected physicians in WA, said the Bill has serious implications for doctors as it transfers all responsibility onto them, unlike Holland where other medical practitioners are involved in carrying out euthanasia.
Dr Watson, who has served as SJOGH’s Medical Director, set up the hospital’s Medical Unit, helped establish the Department of Medical Oncology at Royal Perth Hospital and started the first Physician Training scheme in WA.
“Euthanasia strikes at the heart of key aspects of clinical care. You cannot practice in a team if this law passes,” Dr Watson told a Euthanasia and Palliative Care Forum at the University of Notre Dame Australia in Fremantle on 12 August, where he is also a Professor of Medicine.
“We (as doctors) can either treat people or we can kill them – they’re incompatible. The day legislation passes in this state is the day I’ll deregister myself. I cannot practice like that. It is fundamentally impossible.”
Dr Watson, a consultant physician since 1972 who has also been a member of the Board of the Murdoch Community Hospice – the only one of its kind in WA – said there are practical as well as ethical reasons why the Voluntary Euthanasia Bill 2009 currently before WA Parliament is fraught with peril.
In exploring implications for clinical practitioners, Associate Professor Watson questioned the advisability of allowing doctors to act in a way which is denied to the rest of society and argued for the use of teamwork in improving the care of terminally ill patients – teamwork which is denied by the Bill.
“Legislating in favour of euthanasia is no substitute for better research, better clinical care, better employment of those tools we currently have and better palliative care,” he said.
Though doctors are those most affected by the Bill, they have not thus far been consulted in the public debate, LJ Goody Bioethics Centre director Rev Dr Joseph Parkinson also told the forum.
Citing how the UK’s House of Lords recently held a wide-ranging public inquiry into euthanasia as part of their debate, paying especially close attention to the evidence of the medical profession, Rev Dr Parkinson said: “Equity demands that those who would be charged with implementing this law, should it be passed, should be consulted early in the piece.
“So far this has not happened in this State. It must happen.”
Barrister Peter Quinlan, who has acted for the Medical Board of WA, hospitals and health professionals, also told the forum that while claiming to give individuals the freedom to choose their own fate, it actually does the opposite.
In effect, the Bill seeks to transfer the evaluative responsibility for the decision to the medical professional, he said. “In doing so, the Bill may also paradoxically have the effect of displacing the autonomy of the individual,” Mr Quinlan added.
Most disturbingly, he said, Clause 6 and 10 of the Bill require that the applicant for euthanasia must sign two separate requests which go to their desire (or lack of desire) to continue living. Yet both clauses prohibit that request being made “in the presence of any near relative”, the Bill states.
“What kind of society have we become, and what kind of law are we putting in place, where we have to ensure that at the moment such a profound existential declaration is made, the law requires us to be separated from those closest to us?” Mr Quinlan said.