Hospice NZ changes perspective about patient access to euthanasia

Hospice New Zealand’s general view of euthanasia and assisted suicide, as implemented through the End of Life Choice Act 2019, has relaxed over time.

CEO Wayne Naylor pointed out the organisation’s evolving perspective in an interview with Radio New Zealand. He states, “In the beginning, it was very challenging and unclear to some extent how some hospices should respond. Certainly, over the last three years, there’s been a change.”

Although Hospice is still concerned with providing excellent palliative care and seeking more funding for this vital service, allowing patients to choose to die by euthanasia or to be assisted in their suicide is now also considered important.  Naylor is quoted in the article saying, “We still don’t see assisted dying as part of palliative care or what hospices do, but certainly they shouldn’t be in any way blocking or preventing a person pursuing that if that’s what their wish is.”

Eligibility assessments take place on more hospice sites

This change in perspective means that a “majority” of hospices now allow eligibility assessments to take place on-site.  Previously, when the Act first came into being, the majority refused participation in the process, many stating clearly on their websites that they are a “life-affirming” service and that they conscientiously object to the lethal intervention.

“The only thing that’s still the same is hospices generally don’t offer the actual act of assisted dying on their premises, with the exception of Totara Hospice,” Naylor is reported as saying in the article.

Totara Hospice is located in the South Auckland suburb of Manurewa.  Since the inception of the End of Life Act in New Zealand, Totara has been keen to provide euthanasia and assisted suicide as part of its service.

Totara Hospice actively seek more permissive euthanasia law

Tina McCafferty, Chief Executive of Totara Hospice, will actively seek changes to the law when the End of Life Choice Act review occurs later this year. In the Radio New Zealand article, she states that she agrees with David Seymour’s proposal to remove the current six-month-to-live limit. Her compromise to having no limit at all would be to extend the limit to twelve months. 

McCafferty would also like the so-called “gag clause” to be removed.  The term refers to the requirement that the patient initiates a first conversation with their health care provider about euthanasia or assisted suicide, never the medical practitioner.

Naylor tends to agree with McCafferty, stating that while “you don’t want to put that idea into someone’s head if they haven’t thought of it,” Hospice NZ believe that a person has a “right to have all the options laid out in front of them before they make a decision”.  

Attitudes that promote death rather than affirm life are the ultimate abandonment

That right to all options, it appears, now extends to hastened and deliberate death, a concept alien to the founder of the modern hospice movement, Dame Cecily Saunders, who is quoted as saying:

“Palliative care providers usually recognise that most people are not as afraid of dying as they are of being abandoned.  The worst thing we can do is abandon someone who is hurting.  Attitudes that promote death rather than affirm life are the ultimate abandonment.  The attitude of all who care for the sick and suffering must be: ‘I’m sorry you are suffering what can I do to help you?’ not ‘I’m sorry, let me help you kill yourself.’”

Palliative care and hospice services provide critical, compassionate care for dying and suffering persons and their families.  Authentic, compassionate care requires attending to the person’s physical, emotional, social, and spiritual needs.

Although Totara Hospice is the only Hospice that currently provides euthanasia and assisted suicide on their premises, according to the comments made by Wayne Naylor, many others have opened the door just enough to allow the wolf in.  Such a compromise on what was a solid anti-euthanasia position by our leading palliative care providers denotes a concerning path that will ultimately lead to more hospices following in the anti-life footsteps of Totara Hospice.  Such a promotion of death abandons those in most need of their care.

Note: Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide are commonly referred to as Assisted Dying. This term is a euphemism sanitizing the immoral practice of medical practitioners killing their patients (euthanasia) or assisting their patients to commit suicide (assisted suicide). Therefore, we do not use this term.