DR Christian Rowan pointed out serious flaws in the proposed euthanasia laws in a speech to Queensland Parliament.
Dr Rowan, who is the LNP member for Moggil, has served as president of the Australian Medical Association of Queensland and the Rural Doctors Association of Queensland and said he understood and appreciated the distressing emotion that comes from conversations around end of life care.
But he said Queensland parliamentarians had a duty to consider “every legislative clause, all intent, every oversight and review aspect, every clinical process within State and Federal clinical governance health standards, and importantly, every purported safeguard for vulnerable and at-risk individuals”.
“Individuals have rights, but all of us have obligations to humanity,” he said.
He said this obligation demanded a comprehensive understanding of how the legislation would work in practice and the ramifications for individuals, society and the state.
“Elected representatives have a fundamental responsibility and duty to legislate for, and provide for those, who are vulnerable,” he said.
“Whether due to old age, youth, disability, or those with mental health disorders.”
Ultimately, he said, “providing Queenslanders with an avenue to death, whilst experiencing vulnerabilities, without adequate protections and safeguards, whilst also not meeting the needs and providing access to evidence based palliative care for all Queenslanders, is quite simply unacceptable”.
Dr Rowan quoted Australian Catholic University Queensland Bioethics Centre director Dr David Kirchhoffer in saying, “The Queensland Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill aims to balance individual choice with the protection of the vulnerable. In its current form, and in the current state of health affairs in Queensland, the Bill does neither.”
Dr Rowan said the safeguards laid out in the bill were inadequate, and pointed to the required skill-sets for co-ordinating and consulting practitioners.
He said the legislation “does not require neither the co-ordinating or consulting doctor on voluntary assisted dying to have any expertise in the particular terminal disease, illness, or medical condition, nor in end of life (or palliative care) of patients”.
Quoting a letter signed by 19 former AMA presidents, Dr Rowan said, these lack of requirements were certainly not medical best practice and could not ensure the patient was adequately informed on possible treatments or palliative care options.
He said the eligibility requirement was also flawed.
The legislation stipulates only people who were estimated to die within 12 months could access euthanasia.
Dr Rowan said even the most experienced and credentialed doctors would admit that a 12 month medical prognosis was “incredibly difficult” to assess.
Not only was prognosis difficult but because patients rarely accessed palliative care 12 months before estimated death, they could end up making medical choices with inadequate or inappropriate information.
He said one of the most glaring failures of the legislation was it failed to ensure access to high-quality and properly funded evidence-based palliative care.
“Proponents have consistently argued that assisted dying can sit equally alongside palliative care, and that the provision of assisted dying finally grants a choice to terminal patients,” he said.
“A choice that is afforded to some, but is explicitly denied to others is no real choice at all.
“It is an accepted fact that funding for palliative care in Queensland is grossly insufficient to meet the needs of all Queenslanders who need it most, particularly in regional, rural, and remote communities, as well as many others from multicultural and first-nations communities.”
Dr Rowan sought greater provisions for conscientious objection and other protections for those who sought to exercise that right.
