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The Queensland State Government is being urged to follow South Australia’s lead in granting hospitals the right to opt out of voluntary assisted dying on their premises.
In the past week the South Australian Parliament’s lower house has passed laws to legalise assisted suicide and euthanasia. Included in that Bill is a clause extending the conscientious objection protections for staff to the hospitals they work in.
It is thought to be the first time any jurisdiction in the world has recognised the importance of laws that send a clear message to the community that some health facilities will never provide assisted suicide.
In contrast Queensland’s Bill forces hospitals to facilitate euthanasia on their premises, even if it is against a hospital’s ethics, and despite the Premier’s promise that conscientious objection for institutions would be in the Bill.
Catholic Health Australia Director of Strategy & Mission Rebecca Burdick Davies says: “The Catholic health sector opposes assisted suicide and any attempt to legalise it in Queensland.
“At a minimum, Queensland’s politicians should look to South Australia and protect the rights of organisations to opt out. Right now, Queensland’s draft Bill would allow any doctor to enter a hospital to carry out assisted suicide.
“A doctor can do this without telling the organisation or other doctors involved in the patient’s care. Queensland should scrap this completely unworkable element of the Bill and protect the rights of organisations to decide who enters and uses their facilities.”
Mater Chief Executive Officer Dr Peter Steer said people chose to work and receive care in faith-based hospitals because of the ethical and religious ethos they practiced.
“We need our staff and patients to have a strong sense of certainty and safety about the care we provide in our hospitals,” he said. “Mater has been part of the fabric of Queensland for more than a century and we want our community to be confident that we will continue to deliver those services.”
St Vincent’s Health Australia’s Lincoln Hopper said Queensland’s Bill did not offer hospital providers true conscientious objection.
“It’s one thing for the Bill to grant us the capacity to withdraw our hospitals and staff from participating in VAD, but to then allow our facilities to be used by others in the same practice – something that goes against the very foundations of our work – it shows it’s conscientious objection in name only; there’s no substance to it. Queensland’s MPs must see that surely?”
CHA has also launched a campaign, Another Option, calling on the State Government to boost funding for the palliative care sector in Queensland to provide people with genuine choice in their end-of-life care.
Alongside the Australian Medical Association (Queensland), Palliative Care Queensland and CHA member organisations, CHA has called for an additional $275m a year to be invested in palliative care to ensure Queenslanders are not forced to choose between pain and death.
Queensland’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill 2021 was introduced to the Queensland Parliament last month and is currently the subject of a 12-week consultation period with the Parliament Health and Environment Committee accepting submissions until July 2 and staging public hearings.
