#10 We Who Walk Towards Death

At the heart of the political debate around voluntary assisted dying lies palliative care. On one side sits the argument that it can effectively deal with all pain and suffering, and that it should be made available to everyone before Assisted Dying is made legal.

On the other, a recognition that – for all its benefits – palliative care cannot help everyone, and that those beyond its help should not be left to suffer, or – as some do – take their own lives.

But beyond the political debate, within palliative care lies a much deeper argument. One about values.

Palliative care’s background is as a provider of Christian care; more than half of Australia’s palliative care is supplied by The Catholic Church. According to The Vatican, assisting someone to die is ‘intrinsically evil.’

By papal decree, any request by a person for help to end their life is not to be taken as genuine, but is to be understood instead as ‘an anguished plea for help and love.’

But some palliative care clinicians have a different set of values. They see that their primary purpose is to act in response to what their patient wants and needs. 

It’s called person-centred care, a way of practising medicine that has been thrown into the sharpest focus imaginable by a law allowing doctors to help their patients to die.

Palliative care clinician, and death and dying expert Molly Carlile AM. Photo: supplied

 

‘The bottom line for me is, you can choose whether you want to stop having chemo or anything else that you consider as futile treatment. And we are the defenders of those people. So how can we say, in the same breath, “Yes, you can make your choices, so long as it's not voluntary assisted dying?”’

Palliative care clinician, Molly Carlile AM

For more

• Visit Go Gentle Australia gogentleaustralia.org.au
• Video: Cliv