BIOETHICISTS and Catholic health care leaders around the country have reacted strongly to a university survey which revealed that many Australian doctors are either confused or acting illegally in hastening patients’ deaths.
They were responding to a Newcastle University study released on November 17 which showed that of 683 surgeons surveyed, 247 of them – or 36 per cent – had given dying patients high doses of painkillers to speed their deaths and relieve their suffering.
The survey by surgeon Dr Charles Douglas also found that doctors who profess a religion were up to 10 times less likely to carry out life-shortening procedures.
One in five Catholic surgeons, just over one in three Protestant and Jewish surgeons and less that one in three of another religious affiliation said they had.
Catholic Health Australia’s chief executive officer, Francis Sullivan, said it was a cause for concern that 36 per cent of the survey’s respondents had deliberately given drug overdoses to hasten a patient’s death.
‘This reveals either a lack of education or a disregard for the law,’ he said.
Director of the Queensland Bioethics Centre, Ray Campbell, said that if the survey’s results were accurate it was ‘a sad reflection upon some of the medical profession that a significant number of surgeons make unilateral decisions to kill their patients’.
Mater Hospitals, South Brisbane ethicist, Jesuit Father Bill Uren, said medical practice in Catholic health care facilities was guided by a code of ethical standards.
