Guest opinion: Voting yes in End of Life Choice Act referendum will not end suffering

Palliative care is not about prolonging someone's life, writes Dr Catherine Smalberger (Byrne). Photo / Getty Images

OPINION

I was very sad to read of the distress Carmen Hall had experienced watching the deaths of her sister and father (Opinion October, 7).

Dying is not an easy process and the suffering is sometimes even greater for the people who watch than the person who is actually dying.

I have been a palliative care doctor in Tauranga for nearly 20 years and I know that the dying process is never an easy one for anybody involved.

But that does not mean it has to be undignified or agonising.

No one should need to die in agony, there is so much that can be done to relieve pain – and with methods that do not involve jabbing anyone.

Nor should someone receiving palliative care ever be "high" on morphine – that is not what happens when opiates like morphine are given correctly.

A person who is very close to death is usually not able to get up to go to the toilet and there are many things that can be done to make natural bodily processes such as urination dignified and free of embarrassment.

Some people want to be allowed to do as much as possible independently for as long as possible and we try to make that possible for them.

I want to cry out to people who are dying or who have a loved one who is moving close to death – you do not have to die in agony; your death does not have to be undignified and frightening.

There is so much that can be done to help you and I see that every day at work.

Although it may not be possible to entirely relieve all suffering, I have never seen any of my patients die in agony and the fact that could still happen when there is so much knowledge about how to prevent it says to me that the problem is lack of access to good palliative care.

This referendum is not about whether or not you agree with euthanasia.

Voting yes in this referendum will not end suffering.

It will not make it possible to refuse unnecessary treatments, to stop a life support machine or to refuse food and drink – all these things are already legal.

All it will do will be to allow an unsafe law to come into force, a law that has none of the protections that many other countries have enforced.

Protections such as mandatory cooling-off periods after requesting euthanasia, or obligatory referral to mental health teams for patients with depression, or to palliative care for people in pain, do not exist in the New Zealand Act.

Palliative care does not seek to prolong the life of the dying. But neither does it aim to cut it short by means of a lethal injection which a doctor has to administer.

It is wrong to present euthanasia as the caring option and to ignore the vast majority of peaceful, dignified deaths managed compassionately and well by people trained over many years to do this.

Rather than spending money on a referendum question which many people do not seem to fully understand, surely we as a society should be concentrating on providing free and equitable access for all to good palliative care?

This would truly show we cared about preventing anyone from ever dying in agony or fear.

Catherine Smalberger (Byrne) is a Tauranga GP and palliative care doctor.