Voluntary Assisted Dying: Terminally ill Tanya Battel calls for vote free of political, religious agendas

Gold Coast woman Tanya Battel has spent years battling cancer. She doesn’t want to die. But she has a message for those who would deny her the choice to legally end her own life.

A TERMINALLY ill Gold Coast woman says debate around proposed Voluntary Assisted Dying laws need to be “humanised,” free of religious and political agendas ahead of next month’s state parliament vote.

Tanya Battel – now in her 23rd year battling metastatic breast cancer – took aim at Mater Group Chair Francis Sullivan, who last week made clear his stance on the draft laws that would allow a patient with a life expectancy of 12 months to legally end their life.

Anti-VAD campaigner Mr Sullivan argued that Queensland’s non-government healthcare providers such as Mater – the state’s largest Catholic healthcare provider – deserved the right to operate their hospitals according to their “ethical standing and beliefs”.

Mater Group Chair Francis Sullivan. Picture: supplied

That right, he said, would be stripped from medical practitioners, nurses and other patients who do not wish to participate in VAD should the new legislation be passed on September 14.

“For healthcare providers such as Mater, the proposed law takes away our ability to operate our hospitals and community health services according to the ethos on which we were founded in Queensland more than a century ago,” Mr Sullivan wrote in The Courier-Mail.

“That ethos is one of compassionate care, from the beginning to the end of life.”

While practitioners can decline to take part by conscientious objection, they must still give the patient information on other registered health practitioners, providers or services who, in the practitioner’s belief, is likely to be able to assist the patient with their request.

Tanya Battel has been lobbying for voluntary assisted dying legislation in Queensland. Picture: Richard Walker

“The proposed VAD laws will force Mater to allow euthanasia to take place in our hospitals,” Mr Sullivan said, adding the state should look to improve its palliative care system first.

Ms Battel is responsible for starting the change.org petition to legalise VAD which has amassed about 95,000 signatures and says now is the time to make a change on “progressive issues”.

She said the conversation over the controversial reform has become blurred – too much about other’s opinions and not enough about the terminally ill patients who suffer daily.

“I’ve watched this debate play out many times, which is why we should have just had a national referendum,” she said.

“If you really nut it out, this is a battle between the rights of the terminally ill versus every man and his dog and his opinions.”

She criticised Mr Sullivan’s declaration that “preserving life matters – regardless of age or health situation,” drawing examples from the current pandemic.

At just 57, Burleigh Waters local Ms Battel has spent almost a third of her life fighting the illness – she’s now on her third and last line of chemotherapy tablets. Left next is the heavy-duty intravenous chemicals.

She fears it will soon spread to her brain, already having reached her abdomen: “Nobody wants to die, I don’t want to die, but I know I’ll reach a certain point where I go:

‘I don’t want to do these last six months.”

Two of her good friends are facing a similar battle – one with vaginal cancer who is bedridden in pain, severely ill and unable to live the life she once knew.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk introduced the Voluntary Assisted Dying bill into state parliament this past May. Pic Peter Wallis

“There is more to life than a breath and a pulse. Terminal sedation is bloody awful. He wants sanctity of life, but at what cost? What do you determine life to be?” Ms Battel rebutted.

“Life for many people is more than being bid ridden for months on end, on opioids and unable to leave your home. These people need to educate themselves with diseases and what they actually do to a person.”

Ms Battel suggested a dedicated facility for end of life practices eventually be established in Queensland to eliminate any pressure on those healthcare practitioners, providers, and services who did not want to partake.

A vigil is set to be held the night before voting kicks off in Brisbane.

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