Are vulnerable patients victims of wrongful death?

Right to Life is alarmed at the warnings from Dr Greville and Dr Wensley, previously members of the End of Life Choice Act Review Committee.

These reviewers say “oversight is so limited that wrongful deaths could go undetected”.

This is a most serious situation, as this is an issue of life and death.

Right to Life is opposed to the killing of vulnerable patients and especially of those who have not given consent or who have been coerced.

David Seymour MP, leader of ACT, Associate Minister of Health, architect of the controversial End of Life Choice Act, assured our nation that his legislation was not only “compassionate”, but “safe”. We now know, thanks to Dr Greville and Dr Wensley, that this is untrue and that it is probable that a number of vulnerable New Zealanders have been unlawfully killed by a doctor.

These two doctors were concerned that reports failed to provide information on prognosis, diagnosis, assessment of the patient’s capacity,or evidence to accept that coercion had not been imposed by caregivers or family on the patient to accept a lethal injection or to be assisted in suicide.

At least two medical professionals are required to evaluate each applicant and the prognosis must be that the patient is expected to die within six months. When the members of the Review Committee questioned these gaps, the Ministry advised them to “assume that nothing was wrong”. When Dr Greville personally made contact with doctors to seek further information, she sometimes found “glaring inconsistencies”.

It is not surprising that the Associate Minister of Health responsible for appointments to the Review Committee, David Seymour, declined Dr Greville’s request for reappointment to the Committee for a further two year term. Dr Wensley resigned in protest at the conclusion of her two year term after the failure of the Committee to adhere to “best practice”.

The legislation requires that the Minister of Health appoint a Review Committee to review the death reports sent by the Registrar of Assisted Dying.

The Ministry of Health website states:-

The Committee can only look at information contained in the death reports to arrive at its decision about whether the death shows satisfactory compliance with Section 21(2) of the Act.

Right to Life questions this instruction from the Ministry of Health to the Review Committee.

Right to Life is not aware of anything in the EOLC Act that prohibits the Committee from making enquiries with medical practitioners involved in the killing of vulnerable patients to ensure that the killing of the patient was legal.

The Review Committee has the following functions:

(a) to consider reports sent to it under section 21(3) (assisted death reports); and

(b) to report to the Registrar whether it considers that the information contained in an assisted death report shows satisfactory compliance with the requirements of this Act; and

(c) to direct the Registrar to follow up on any information contained in an assisted death report that the Review Committee considers does not show satisfactory compliance with the requirements of this Act.

Right to Life requests that the government’s review of the EOLC Act results in the Review Committee being empowered to contact medical practitioners to seek further information to ensure that vulnerable patients are not victims of unlawful death.