‘Pits dying people against right-wing religious views’: The push to change NSW’s euthanasia laws

NSW Liberal MPs are pushing to change the state’s voluntary assisted dying laws to treat aged care homes like faith-based hospitals in a move described as “a cruel culture war bill” that could take away the rights of seriously unwell elderly people to die in their home.

Liberal MLC Susan Carter has introduced a bill to amend the laws so that “residential facilities may decline to facilitate the administration of voluntary assisted dying services in the same way, and subject to the same obligations to make alternative arrangements, as hospitals”.

A dozen NSW MPs are pushing to change the state’s voluntary assisted dying laws. Credit: iStock

Under the current act, an aged care home “can choose not to participate in the provision of voluntary assisted dying services”. However, they must “not hinder a patient’s access to voluntary assisted dying”, according to NSW Health’s guidance for euthanasia.

Carter said her bill was not “a handbrake on accessing euthanasia”, but would give aged care facilities the “freedom and that choice that they do not have at present”.

“The fact that this bill would align aged care facilities with hospitals should give everyone voting for this bill comfort,” Carter told parliament.

“Unlike Victoria, where overwhelmingly those seeking euthanasia self-administer, in NSW we now know that about 80 per cent of VAD is administered by an authorised health professional.

“For the roommate in the aged care facility, this looks like the doctor coming into the shared room bringing death, not healing. This would be challenging at the best of times, but even more challenging if the roommate has chosen to live in a faith-based facility and shares those faith values.”

However, the Older Women’s Network and advocacy group Go Gentle are highly critical of the proposed changes, which have the backing of 12 MPs including Liberals Anthony Roberts, Damien Tudehope and Chris Rath, plus Mark Latham and Shooters, Fishers and Farmers MPs Robert Borsak and Mark Banasiak.

Older Women’s Network chief executive Yumi Lee said, “aged care is a home, not a hospital”.

“This is not about mandating that providers deliver VAD themselves. It is about ensuring that older people – who have paid for and live in these homes – are not deprived of a lawful, carefully safeguarded option at the end of life,” Lee said.

“Placing aged care residents in the same position as hospital in-patients erodes dignity, increases
suffering through avoidable transfers, and conflicts with the national aged care rights framework.”

Sydney MP Alex Greenwich has criticised the bill as cruel.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

Carter said the changes would “simply mean that they will be transferred to some other location, typically a hospital, for the last stage of their life”.

“This transfer close to death is not unusual. Commonly, residents of an aged care facility who are close to death will be transferred to a hospital for their dying days,” Carter said.

Sydney MP Alex Greenwich, who introduced the original bill in 2021, said the parliament rejected a similar proposal “and I urge my colleagues to do the compassionate thing and vote this down”.

“This a cruel culture war bill that pits dying people against right-wing religious views,” he said.

“Aged care is often a person’s last home, and this bill forces someone to choose between staying and suffering, or leaving and dying somewhere foreign to them, or becoming homeless if they decide not to access the final stage of voluntary assisted dying.”

Go Gentle Australia has written to members of the upper house urging them to vote down Carter’s bill when parliament returns next month for the final sitting period of the year.

Chief executive Dr Linda Swan said the bill seeks to remove the rights of dying people in residential aged care.

“We are deeply concerned about this proposed change that has the potential to inflict serious harm on some of our most vulnerable older people,” Swan said.

“When a person enters residential aged care, that place becomes their home. This bill would unreasonably allow an aged care home to force an older dying person off the premises.

“This would be no matter how unwell or close to death that person is. In effect, they would be forced out of familiar surroundings, and away from their friends and community.”

Go Gentle highlights a case study in their letter to MLCs. Caroline’s mother is a permanent resident in a Catholic aged care home in Sydney. (She has asked for her surname to remain anonymous because her mother still lives in the home.)

Her mother suffers from cholangiocarcinoma, a rare cancer of the bile ducts, and wants to access VAD but has been told that while she can be assessed on site, she will have to move to another facility to access it.

Her mother is 87, weighs 32 kilograms and suffers from painful rheumatoid arthritis and bedsores.

“She’s in so much pain. Any movement is excruciating,” Caroline said. “It’s unreasonable to move someone in that situation.”

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