Doctors to fly in to help patients end their lives without breaking federal law
Doctors will fly to regional Queensland to help patients end their lives next month after the federal government failed to act on pleas to change laws restricting assisted dying via telehealth.
Doctors will fly to regional Queensland to help terminally ill patients end their lives next month after the federal government failed to act on pleas from state Labor colleagues to change laws restricting assisted dying via telehealth.
Queensland taxpayers will fund the flights to circumvent a federal law that prohibits “inciting or counselling” suicide over the phone or internet when the state’s scheme begins on January 1.
The Australian revealed in July that federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus was investigating changes to the Criminal Code after senior members of the Palaszczuk government raised concerns about doctors being fined $222,000 for discussing euthanasia via telehealth.
But despite 18 million Australians due to be covered by state assisted-dying schemes by the end of January, the federal government has not yet made legislative amendments to exempt doctors.
Government sources have told The Australian senior members of the Albanese government have also been lobbying Mr Dreyfus behind closed doors.
Queensland Health Minister Yvette D’Ath said her department would fly authorised VAD practitioners into regional and rural towns to ensure equitable access, with training already approved for 135 doctors and nurses.
“This is needed until we get the changes to federal legislation that allow us to support people through telehealth as well,” she said.
With federal parliament not due to resume until February, commonwealth prosecutors could be given guidelines not to charge VAD doctors, which Deputy Premier Steven Miles has previously said would be a “relatively simple thing to do”.
Mr Dreyfus’s office did not respond to questions about whether he would seek guidelines to shield medics from potential prosecution or when the government would move to change laws, but the matter is expected to be raised at a meeting of the nation’s attorneys-general on Friday.
Aaron Harper, a north Queensland MP who chaired the parliamentary inquiry into assisted dying, said the carriage service law “did his head in” and needed to be changed urgently.
“Fundamentally it is about giving people choice no matter where they live. During the inquiry, people shared stories about not wanting to leave their community and who would?” he said.
“It is purely for the feds now to resolve. We have made the representations and I applaud Queensland Health for putting up a plan B to actually fly doctors into these communities.”
Mr Harper, who has written to Anthony Albanese on the issue, said he was “confident” the federal government would change the law.
Doctors in Victoria, Western Australia and Tasmania – the three states with assisted dying already in place – are bound by strict rules to avoid federal prosecution.
Melbourne GP Nick Carr has taken legal action against Mr Dreyfus in the Federal Court to clarify the definition of suicide in the Criminal Code after making repeated requests to his office and the former Morrison government.
“There is a huge burden that is placed on people who are suffering at the end of their lives by having to attend every discussion with their doctor face-to-face,” he said.
“This is already an issue that affects every single state and will almost certainly affect the entire country once the territories develop their own legislation.
“We know that Mark Dreyfus is supportive of voluntary assisted dying so it made sense to us that he would see this would be a fairly easy thing to change.”
Assisted dying schemes will come into effect in Queensland and South Australia in January, and NSW in November. Federal laws restricting the ACT and Northern Territory from legislating on voluntary euthanasia were repealed last week.
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