TOWNSVILLE bishop Tim Harris is a leading voice demanding the Queensland Government rescind a decision to fund doctors flying to regional parts of the state to help terminally ill patients end their lives.
“Let’s call it for what it is – it is a death regime and an assault on a civilised society,” Townsville Bishop, Tim Harris said.
“I mean flying in death squads to assist in the killing of terminally ill people and then flying them out.
“To me it is an abomination because people need care, they need continuity of care.”
Queensland taxpayers will fund the fly-in fly-out (FIFO) doctor service to circumvent a federal law that prohibits “inciting or counselling” suicide over the phone or internet when the state’s Voluntary Assisted Dying scheme begins on January 1.
Current law prohibits doctors from discussing euthanasia via telehealth, and the federal government has not yet made legislative amendments to exempt doctors, even though federal Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus is reported to be investigating changes to the Criminal Code.
“So the Queensland government has decided to send FIFO medicos into regional areas to euthanise people but not a dollar for better palliative care… airfares and death are cheaper, I guess,” Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge tweeted.
North Queensland MP Aaron Harper, who chaired the parliamentary inquiry into assisted dying, told The Australian the law that stops doctors from discussing euthanasia via phone or internet “did his head in” and needed to be changed urgently.
“Fundamentally it is about giving people choice no matter where they live. During the inquiry, people shared stories about not wanting to leave their community and who would?” he said.
“It is purely for the feds now to resolve. We have made the representations and I applaud Queensland Health for putting up a plan B to actually fly doctors into these communities.”
Mr Harper, who has written to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on the issue, said he was “confident” the federal government would change the law.
Bishop Harris said he was fiercely at odds with Mr Harper on the issue, and that the government should provide funding for more palliative care specialists, not “fly-in fly-out hit squads to knock people out”.
“Our views just do not connect,” Bishop Harris said. “It’s a disgrace. It’s not how it was meant to be in my view, in terms of caring and accompanying the dying.”
Bishop Harris said remote indigenous communities remain the most vulnerable as euthanasia laws are introduced.
“As I’ve said before – they’re frightened with white man’s medicine anyway. And having someone coming to them offering a quick way out without really actually caring and accompanying them and reassuring them.
“How can a fly in doctor reassure anyone? They’ve come with a purpose – and that’s to help people die.”
On the other hand, Bishop Harris said palliative care specialists come with an entirely different purpose.
“They come to accompany and to walk with and to stay with and reassure, and to help with levels of pain,” he said.
“We’re going down a path that I never thought I’d ever see – yet it the path this state government is determined to follow. It’s wrong. It’s immoral.”
