Queensland government funds doctor flights as VAD telehealth ban continues

Queensland’s new government has vowed to continue funding doctors to fly to regional areas to help terminally ill patients end their lives amid the Albanese government’s refusal to lift a ban on telehealth appointments for VAD.

Queensland Health Minister Tim Nicholls. Picture: Brendan Radke

Queensland’s new Liberal National Party government has vowed to continue funding doctors to fly to regional areas to help terminally ill patients end their lives in the face of the Albanese government’s refusal to lift a nationwide ban on using telehealth appointments for voluntary assisted dying.

With assisted dying schemes now legal and available in all six states, medical groups and state governments have been unsuccessfully lobbying the commonwealth to overturn a Philip Nitschke-era federal ban that threatens doctors with a $330,000 fine for using the phone or internet to “counsel or incite” suicide.

Queensland’s new Health Minister Tim Nicholls, who was one of 10 LNP MPs that voted to pass Labor’s 2021 voluntary assisted dying (VAD) laws, told The Australian that state taxpayers would continue funding the regional flight scheme to circumvent the federal laws. A Queensland Health spokesman said the government had paid for 78 VAD flights this year, at a cost of $54,903.

“All Queenslanders suffering and dying deserve access to safe, timely and compassionate VAD services, regardless of their location,” he said.

“To mitigate the risk of unintentionally breaching the law, some steps in the voluntary assisted dying process must be conducted in person and cannot be done by telehealth. The service offers travel support for patients and authorised practitioners to enable consultations to occur face to face, enabling equitable access to voluntary assisted dying for people living in regional, rural and remote Queensland.”

Australian Medical Association president Danielle McMullen wrote to federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus in May, renewing calls for telehealth to be used for VAD care.

Australian Medical Association president Danielle McMullen.

“Where VAD is legal doctors who participate must be protected and not liable to prosecution when acting in accordance with the law and appropriate professional standards,” she told The Australian. “A prohibition on the use of telehealth by doctors could significantly impact people living in regional, rural and remote communities who may not have the same access to medical services as those in the cities and who may need to travel long distances to see a doctor face to face. It also disadvantages patients who are physically unable to travel, even at relatively short distances, due to their medical condition.”

Anthony Albanese has previously said that he believes telehealth should not be used “because I’d be concerned about some of the implications there”.

Labor’s national conference last year passed a binding resolution for the VAD telehealth ban to be reviewed and a spokesman for Mr Dreyfus said: “The commonwealth continues to consider requests to amend provisions in the Criminal Code in consultation with the states and territories.”

Teal independent Kate Chaney, who holds the Perth seat of Curtin and introduced a private members bill to federal parliament in February to repeal the VAD telehealth ban, said rules about the appropriate use of telehealth should be made under health regulations and practice guides, not the criminal code. “It makes no sense for taxpayers to foot the bill for doctors to travel if there are parts of the VAD process that can appropriately be done through telehealth instead,” she said.

Right to Life Australia has warned that allowing telehealth to be used for assisted dying would allow patient safeguards to be easily circumvented.

During the October state election campaign, Queensland’s former Labor health minister Shannon Fentiman said she had “repeatedly” raised the issue with Mr Dreyfus and her federal counterpart Mark Butler.

“The reason they are giving me is that it’s not a priority for the government at this time,” she said.

Premier David Criusafulli voted against Labor’s VAD laws in 2021, saying he could not support “flawed legislation” that allowed people to ­access assisted dying before they qualified for specialist palliative care services in the public system. However, during the October state election campaign he said there would be no changes to VAD laws for at least four years.