DR RODNEY SYME HAS DIED AGED 86 AND THE WORLD IS POORER FOR THE LOSS OF THIS GREAT MAN

This article appeared in The Age after it had appeared in the SydneyMorning Herlad, which is a bit strange, seeing he was a Victorian and died in Victoria.

Vale Dr Rodney Syme

‘He was fearless’: Prominent euthanasia campaigner Rodney Syme dies

By Melissa Cunningham
22 October 2021

Prominent euthanasia advocate Rodney Syme has been remembered as compassionate and fearless man who spent decades fighting for the right for terminally ill people dying intolerable deaths to end their own lives.

Dr Syme, 86, died on Wednesday after recently suffering a stroke.

Doctor Rodney Syme. Credit:Simon Schluter

The Melbourne surgeon was a veteran of the voluntary assisted dying campaign in Australia and was internationally acclaimed for his work in the right-to-die movement.

His son Bruce Syme described his dad as a selfless humanitarian, whose strength of character and integrity and humility was impossible to measure.

Victorian Reason Party MP Fiona Patten paid tribute to the urologist on Friday and said Dr Syme was a trusted confidante and mentor, who was instrumental in the establishment of euthanasia laws in Victoria in 2017.

“There is no doubt that we would not have assisted dying laws in Australia today had it not been for Rodney Syme,” she said.

“His tenacity and compassion changed me as a person. I respond to legislation and I listen to people in a different way after spending time and learning from Rodney. He is an extraordinary person.”

She said the laws had meant hundreds of terminally ill Victorians have been able to end their pain and suffering at a time and place of their choosing.

Andrew Denton, who founded Go Gentle to advocate for voluntary assisted dying after his father’s slow and painful death, said he was filled with grief, at the loss of the “indefatigable and unbreakable” Dr Syme.

“The mighty oak has fallen,” he said. “There seems a vast, empty space in the forest where he once stood. That familiar, comforting shadow no longer cast.

“While his passing fills us with grief and we will miss him in our bones as mentor, friend, and guide, we carry with us in our veins Rodney’s life’s work.”

Dr Syme sat on Victoria’s Dying with Dignity Board, a group he established to lobby for euthanasia laws in Australia, until his death this week. As he pushed for law reform, Dr Syme risked criminal prosecution several ti

The board’s president Hugh Sarjeant said Dr Syme’s attack on what he deemed as “unjust laws” was a catalyst for change.

“He was fearless and his departure leaves a great legacy of success, to the benefit of so many Australians,” Mr Sarjeant said. “The loss of such a wise and kindly friend leaves us all the poorer.”

Vice president Jane Morris said Dr Syme’s empathy and desire to help those dying insufferable deaths knew no bounds. Dr Rodney Syme with cancer patient Bernard Erica in 2016.

Dr Rodney Syme with cancer patient Bernard Erica in 2016.Credit:Penny Stephens
“His generosity with his time, words and wise counsel was infinite,” she said. “He was there for anyone who reached out to him and made everyone he spoke to feel cared for and special.”

Dr Syme has previously said he had epiphany in 1974 after being unable to relieve the pain of a patient with cancer of the spine and was left haunted by her screams from the hospital floor above him.

“That had the most profound effect on me,” he said. “There was nothing we could do to relieve her agony. For the next 20 years, I thought very, very deeply. I studied the medical literature... formulating my views. I began to make public statements. As a consequence, complete strangers started to approach me.”

In 2005, he admitted on radio that he provided the cancer stricken Victorian man, Steve Guest, with Nembutal two weeks before he died, provoking an investigation into his medical conduct, and triggering a national debate on voluntary assisted dying.

“I’m not doing it quietly anymore,” he said at the time. “I’ve sailed close to the wind, no doubt about it, but the law is hypocritical and I’m not the only doctor who is operating in this murky terrain. It’s just that I’m prepared to say so publicly.”>

In 2016, the Australian Medical Board banned him from providing advice to terminally ill patients after he told ABC television program Australian Story that he’d offered to provide cancer patient Bernard Erica, who was in severe pain and dying of tongue and throat cancer, with Nembutal.

He successfully appealed the ban imposed on him by the Medical Board of Australia, aimed at stopping him from providing advice to terminally ill patients.

Former Victorian attorney-general Jill Hennessy, who introduced the state’s voluntary assisted dying legislation, said Dr Syme had left an indelible mark.

“I am so thankful for all he taught us, his compassion, decency and all the reform he helped propel,” she said.

Oncologist Cam Mclaren, who has helped more than two dozen people end their lives under Victoria’s euthanasia laws, said he was unsure if he would have had the courage to do so had it not been for Dr Syme.

“He gave me a lot of strength, particularly in the early days, to continue doing what I was doing,” he said. “What he has done has its own life force. He’s had this exponentially significant impact on end-of-life choices.“

In 2019, he was made a Member of the Order of Australia for significant service to social welfare initiatives and to law reform. But in 2021, he announced he would return the honour after controversial former tennis great Margaret Court was promoted to the highest level of the Order of Australia.

Related Article Dr Rodney Syme and Bernard Erica who is dying of tongue and lung cancer.
Euthanasia advocate Rodney Syme challenges medical board over assisted death
In September, Dr Syme won the Health Professional Award for the healthcare worker who had created global change at the 18th World Federation of the Right to Die Societies in Chicago.

He continued to practise medicine well into his 80s and counselled thousands of terminally ill people throughout his medical career, while caring for his wife at home up until her death earlier this year.

In the later years of his life, he spoke to thousands of terminally ill people over the phone from his home in Yandoit in regional Victoria. He often spent hours counselling them and supporting them as they grappled with the fear of both physical and existential suffering. His book A Good Death recounts some of their stories.

Related Article Margaret Radmore is terminally ill. Exclusive Euthanasia 'I choose not to suffer': Margaret's choice to be one of the first Victorians to access assisted dying

Dr Syme is survived by his three children Bruce, Megan and Robin.

At Dr Syme’s request, there will be no funeral.

THE BIG SLEEP - EUTHANASIA STORY OF PAT AND PETER SHAW

The big sleep

By Julia Medew
Jan. 16, 2016, 10:01 a.m.

Pat and Peter Shaw took their own lives together in their home, both aged 87.

Scientists Pat and Peter Shaw died in a suicide pact in October. Their daughters reflect on their parents’ plan - and their remarkable lives. 

For as long as the blue-eyed Shaw sisters can remember, they knew their parents planned to one day take their own lives.

It was often a topic of conversation. Patricia and Peter Shaw would discuss with their three daughters their determination to avoid hospitals, nursing homes, palliative care units - any institution that would threaten their independence in old age.

Having watched siblings and elderly friends decline, Pat and Peter spoke of their desire to choose the time and manner of their deaths.

To this end, the couple, from the Melbourne bayside suburb of Brighton, became members of Exit International, the pro-euthanasia group run by Philip Nitschke that teaches people peaceful methods to end their own lives.

Letter to the editor: The Age, January 31, 2007.

The family had a good line in black humour. The three sisters recall telephone conversations with their mother in which she would joke about the equipment their father had bought after attending Exit workshops. “He’s in the bedroom testing it,” Pat would quip.

About four years ago, Pat and Peter’s resolve to stay away from hospitals was heightened. While hanging washing in the backyard of their beloved home, Pat, then 83, tripped and broke a bone in her thigh. She was carted off to the emergency department. Her fracture healed well but doctors were concerned about her high blood pressure. They wanted to keep her in and treat it until it was under control.

Pat with her daughters in the '60s.

Pat disagreed. A biochemist who had taught medical students at Monash University for decades, she blamed the medicos for driving up her blood pressure. She said she knew how to treat it and so, against dire warnings, she left the hospital with Peter. Sure enough, when she got home her blood pressure dropped within days.

The two scientists relished life. They skied, went bushwalking and climbed mountains, often taking their three young daughters with them. Their cultural and intellectual pursuits were many - classical music, opera, literature, wine, arguments over dinner with their many friends. They donated 10 per cent of their annual income to political and environmental movements. Family events were spent thoroughly debating the topics of the day.

As their capacity declined, the conversation about ending their own lives became more serious and their rejection of what Peter called “religious do-gooders” became more fierce.

The Shaws at a backyard gathering.

“It was also a way into their favourite topics; philosophy, ethics, politics, the law …,” says their youngest daughter, Kate. “The idea that their end-of-life decisions could be interfered with by people with the superstitions of medieval inquisitors astounded them, and alarmed them.”

In April, Peter, an eminent meteorologist, was labouring. He sat down at his computer and typed a letter to his daughters, three highly educated women - two have PhDs and one is a concert violinist in Germany.
“My head swims,” he wrote. “When I am reading, I can’t follow a difficult argument, so I give up, telling myself that it doesn’t matter, and I will read something else. I have just now been reading the history and politics arguments at the end of the latest Quarterly Essay and I am very disappointed that I can’t follow them.”

Going bush in the '60s.

“My condition is getting worse bit by bit, slowly week by week. On top of all this, my eyesight and hearing are no good, my pulse is occasionally irregular. So how long can it go on? Weeks? Months? As you all know, I am not afraid of dying but I am dead scared of incompetence.”

Pat was also troubled by her old age. Arthritis was corroding her joints and she was getting dizzy, putting her at risk of another fall. She had swollen knees and hands, and was finding it increasingly difficult to get out of bed and out of chairs.

Following Peter’s letter, his daughters tried to keep him and Pat as content as possible. They visited more often. They tried to work out ways of helping. They attempted to cheer up the pair with fine whisky and wines. Surely they wouldn’t go when there was another bottle of duty-free Laphroaig in the pantry, Kate thought. But her parents had other plans.

Taking a tumble on Mount Hotham.

Anny, their second daughter, asked if they could wait for one last Christmas. But they couldn’t. Or wouldn’t.
They set a date. Peter said it was time and Pat agreed. They would enter the “big sleep” together on October 27, the day after Pat’s 87th birthday.

Anny got on a plane. When she arrived in Melbourne on October 21, she was shocked at how frail her parents looked. She would often find her father slumped in his chair. Her mother was struggling to move in the purposeful way she used to. Anny showed them a DVD of concerts she had performed with the Munich Radio Orchestra. But she could see that her parents had changed. They were tired. Even a bit bored, she thought.

On their final night together, the family shared a last supper of sorts. The sisters prepared a plate of cheeses, avocado and smoked salmon to eat with wine. Peter and Pat pecked at it. They didn’t seem very interested in food. Anny picked up their grandmother’s violin and played for her parents. They went to bed around 10pm.

The next morning, Peter and Pat got up early. They showered, dressed and made their bed. Peter had breakfast, a fried egg and coffee. Pat did not eat. She wanted to keep her stomach empty for what was to come.

The family sat in their backyard in the soft morning sun, enjoying the native garden that had flourished around their Robin Boyd-style home. Peter had designed the house himself in the 1960s.

“They were more cheerful than I had seen them since I arrived,” Anny said.

“They were just relaxed and ready to go.”

Everybody knew the plan. The sisters were to leave around noon. They felt they had no choice. Assisting, aiding or abetting a suicide carries a penalty of up to five years’ jail in Victoria. Their mother would have liked them to stay, but not at the risk of prosecution.

Pat did not want to die by herself, so she would take a lethal drug first. After leaving her in their bed, Peter would walk alone down the hall of their home and into the living room where they had shared so many hours. He would open the back door and trek one last time through his yard and into his shed where his equipment was set up.

In those final hours, everybody was calm. They discussed the need to lock the doors after the sisters left. People were always coming and going through the house. It would be a bad time for anyone to come knocking.

Peter Shaw (centre) on the Antarctic expedition for which he later received a Polar Medal.

While Peter discussed the logistics, Pat mused about any final homilies she could offer her daughters before she left them. Peter joked that they had never listened anyway.

“It was all so normal,” says Kate. “I just started laughing at the surreality of it ... and took out my phone to take some photos - something I never do.”

And then it was time.

Just before noon, the sisters embraced their mother and father and left. There were no tears.

They walked out of their family home and walked down to the cafe where Peter regularly sipped coffee during his “morning totters” with his friend Frank. They wandered on the beach where they had grown up, and waited.

Peter Shaw (left) in Antarctica in 1953.

Somewhere in Antarctica, there is a mountain named after Peter Shaw. He conquered it in 1955 on a pioneering mission with the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions. The following year, he was awarded a Polar Medal for the mission and he was immortalised on a postage stamp. The trip had been tough. He and his companions had endured at least one terrifying storm that was so traumatic no one ever spoke about it again. They relied on candles for light and layers of wool for warmth. There were no fancy gadgets.

The year that Peter stuck an Australian flag in that peak was the same year he fell in love with his sweetheart.
Patricia was the “it girl” in their mountaineering club. Dazzling blue eyes and blonde hair. But Pat - or Patsy as she was sometimes called - was more comfortable in shorts and hiking boots than dresses and baby-doll heels. She was whip smart, too. Had plenty to say and knew what she was talking about. The first time Peter ever saw Pat, he later told the girls, he had turned to a friend at the club gathering and asked who she was. The attraction was mutual. They married when they were 27.

Pat abseils on Sugarloaf, 1955.

During the 1950s, Peter worked as a meteorologist for the Bureau of Meteorology while Pat, one of the first women to study biochemistry at the University of Melbourne, worked as a nutritionist. She took a break from it in 1957 to have her first daughter. But she never fancied herself a stay-at-home mum. After their next two girls arrived in 1959 and late 1960, Pat started teaching at Monash University where she became a lecturer in the medical faculty.

In the early 1960s, Peter read the weather for the ABC and Channel Seven - a small taste of fame. But he was no peacock. He was better known for his principles and dedication to the Professional Officers Association where he concentrated on winning fair pay and conditions for his peers. He was admired for his encyclopedic knowledge of meteorology, and for his ability to be direct and frank when something needed to be said.

An old colleague, Michael Hassett, recalls him flooring everybody at a meeting in the late ’70s about a controversial plan to collect data on Bureau of Meteorology employees. After several timid questions from the crowd, Peter stood up and said, “I don’t have a question, I want to deliver a tirade.”

Pat on Mount Sugarloaf in 1955.

“He lambasted the proposal as a thoroughly bad idea from start to finish and suggested it should be abandoned. Not long after that, it sunk without a trace,” Michael said.

They lived their lives well, and on their own terms.

Now their daughters waited on the beach. Their greatest fear was not that their beloved parents would die, but that they - or worse, one of them - would not. The Shaw sisters trusted their parents and had faith in their plan but they were still aware of the many things that could go wrong. What if the drug their mother had buried in her garden for fear of a police raid had lost its potency? What if one of them survived to be accused of killing the other?

Nobody knows precisely what happened in Peter and Pat’s last moments but when the sisters returned to the house, about 1.30pm, their mother was lying still on her back in bed. There was a note on the bench from their father in spidery handwriting. It said, in part: “Satisfactory for Pat and for me, eventually”.

Peter plays a clarinet in Antarctica, 1955.

They found their father in the shed, reclining in a chair. They checked for signs of life - or death. Heartbeat, pulse. First their mother. Then their father. Nothing.

There is no good way to lose your parents. When the three sisters returned to their parents’ house, they were orphans. The plan had worked and there was no sign of suffering. Peter and Pat had set out to end their lives in a meticulous, scientific fashion without any fuss, just as they had lived. And they had done it.
What happened next was unsettling, though. The sisters called their parents’ GP. They had expected him to be able to come promptly and quietly certify their deaths. But he was caught up with patients all afternoon. He told them the two deaths required a call to triple zero.

Pat in 1956.

This was when the outside world started to push in. Within minutes of the call, paramedics arrived, lights flashing. The police were not far behind. Two people had died in a suicide pact and their three daughters were at their home. Suddenly, a very private decision had become a very public event.

Kate met the paramedics at the door. The medicos wanted to rush in. She stopped them to explain. Their parents had intended to die; they did not want to be resuscitated, she said. It took some discussion.
Eventually the paramedics entered, attended the bodies and documented the deaths. They were respectful, say the daughters. The police were also sympathetic and supportive when they understood what had happened. But the homicide squad still had to be called in. The Shaw family home became a crime scene.

The sisters were told to attend a police station to make statements. No charges have been laid.

To erase any doubts about their deaths, Peter and Pat had both written suicide notes. Each said they had died by their own hand, with no assistance or pressure from others. In a letter left with his solicitor and titled “To be opened after my death”, Peter had written that he was “sane, quite good-humoured, and not at all depressed”. He said he was making a rational decision.

“I am not religious, and I look forward calmly to a sleep from which I will not wake,” he said.

Peter Shaw's letter, September 17, 2015.

“I have had a good life, and prolonging it will not make it better.”

Pat wrote a note in her own cursive hand and tucked it into a notebook with the family’s “X’mas pud” recipe for her daughters. The note, written on cream paper, said she had no help from her family, whom she loved very much.

“I am of sound mind, with no hint of dementia or depression … Having seen my two sisters die in nursing homes, I have no wish to go that way,” the letter said.

Pat Shaw's letter, September 23, 2015.

“In case there should be any doubt, I declare that my death is by my own hand.”

Today the Shaw sisters are still coming to terms with the loss of both parents. They miss their wit and warmth. But they respect their choice and feel strongly that suicide can be rational. All three say their parents should not have had to risk prosecution to die together at the time of their choosing. Nor should they have had to be alone for the legal protection of their family.

“It shouldn't be so difficult for rational people to make this decision,” Kate said. “Obviously, care has to be taken but assisted suicide should not be illegal.”

Anny and Kate, the two sisters who have been willing to talk publicly about what happened that day, have been honest with many people about their parents’ choice. Some have been awed. Most have been deeply supportive. But a couple have passed judgement. One friend suggested Peter and Pat had been selfish for leaving their daughters. Another acquaintance hinted to the daughters that they must not have offered enough support. Why would their parents leave them if they knew they would be cared for?

But Kate says anyone who suggests this does not understand the Shaws, a family of fiercely independent rationalists. Her parents never wanted to leave their home nor be cared for. Nor were they the types to sit around for another decade with rugs on their knees.

“To those people who say we don’t have the right to choose the time and manner of our departure, our mother and father said, ‘Well, we do and we did’,” she said.

“I love their defiance right to the end. But these were two extraordinary human beings.”

Peter and Pat on the day they died.

For help or information, call Lifeline 131 114 and beyondblue 1300 224 636
theage.com.au

THE PERSECUTION OF DR PHILIP NITSCHKE

Generally speaking. most Australians live - or exist - somewhere between the 18th and 20th centuries. Not too many have progressed to be living in the 21st century, and even some of those who are edging in that direction sometimes just don't quite make it that far.

Human rights are very fragile and most so-called democratic governments pay lip service to the notion that they are practising democracies.

In Australia in 2015 we have the situation where the word euthanasia is unacceptable as a concept and the views and practices of one particular doctor are seen as a threat to the population at large - as if all of a sudden 23 million people are about to commit suicide!

Euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke opens appeal against Medical Board over registration

November 10, 2014 - smh

·                      

Julie-Anne Davies

·                             

Appeal: Philip Nitschke's conduct is under scrutiny. Photo: Glenn Campbell

It seemed fitting that euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke should be fighting for his medical licence and his professional reputation in the town where he first shot to world attention.

 On Monday in Darwin, Mr Nitschke began his appeal  in the Northern Territory Civil and Administrative Tribunal against the decision by the  Medical Board of Australia to  suspend his registration after he admitted supporting a 45-year-old Perth man's decision to commit suicide.

The case was not about  voluntary euthanasia nor rational suicide but "a very precisely focused interim hearing into Mr Nitschke's conduct into the death of a man", Ms Lisa Chapman SC for the Medical Board of Australia told the hearing.

In emails between Mr Nitschke and Mr Brayley, Mr Nitschke chose to be registered as a doctor, Ms Chapman said.

"If he hadn't, the board would have no jurisdiction [to suspend his licence]."

Ms Chapman said the emails contained very specific information about various ways to commit suicide.

"The gas flow, where to buy the cylinders from. How to take the peaceful pill.

"He obtained scant information about Mr Brayley before he died."

Before  Monday's hearing, Mr Nitschke's barrister Peter Nugent told Fairfax the appeal as "the trial of a dangerous idea".

"It is a controversial subject," he said. "Mr Nitschke is a controversial figure.

"The views which he holds are not abhorrent, they're not out there, they are not even out of step with mainstream Australia's view."

On Monday afternoon the board conceded Mr Nitschke was not in a doctor/patient relationship with Mr Brayley.  

Fairfax understands that the board will argue it was forced to use its emergency powers to protect vulnerable suicidal people from Mr Nitschke and his "dangerous ideas". More seriously, the board is expected to tell the five-member panel, it had to act because Mr Nitschke possessed the means to transform  these ideas into action.

The hearing is set down for five days.  It is understood the board's lawyers will say that Mr Nitschke's euthanasia book, The Peaceful Pill Handbook, is a practical guide to different methods of suicide, and while banned in Australia it is freely available through the internet.

Further, it is believed the board will argue that Mr Nitschke updates e-book subscribers of overseas suppliers of the illegal drug Nembutal, and through his workshops advises people on end-of-life drugs.

Mr Nitschke told Fairfax the opportunity for people to choose to end their life needed to be "enshrined as an option".

"Individuals in a society must have the ability to make decisions over their own lives. Life is a precious gift and so we need to be able to fight for that option."

The hearing continues.

 
Euthanasia activist Philip Nitschke loses legal battle to practice medicine

January 7, 2015 - 5:07PM

Julia Medew

Dr Philip Nitschke. Photo: David Mariuz
Prominent euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke has lost a legal battle to protect his registration to practice medicine after a tribunal ruled he posed a serious risk to the public and could undermine confidence in the medical profession.
But Dr Nitschke has vowed to appeal the decision by the Northern Territory Health Professional Review Tribunal, saying doctors have to face the "harsh reality" that many people, including those who are not terminally ill, believe they have a right to end their own lives.
The tribunal ruled that the Medical Board of Australia's decision to use its emergency powers to suspend Dr Nitschke's registration last year was warranted. The suspension followed reports Dr Nitschke had supported Nigel Brayley, a murder suspect who was not terminally ill when he ended his own life last year. When Mr Brayley told him of his plans to end his own life, Dr Nitschke did not refer him to a medical practitioner.
In an appeal of the board's decision to the tribunal, Dr Nitschke argued he was not in a doctor patient relationship with Mr Brayley when they discussed end of life options and that people without a terminal illness could make a rational decision to commit suicide.
But in a strongly worded judgement, the tribunal said Dr Nitschke posed a risk to public health and safety because he interacted with large numbers of people considering suicide and his views might cause people to "follow the pathway to suicide believing it to be a pathway sanctioned by a medical practitioner and perhaps the medical profession generally".
It said his views may also mislead people about the values of doctors and undermine confidence in them.
In a written statement, Dr Nitschke said he was disappointed but not surprised by the decision which he was now appealing in the Darwin Supreme Court.
He said the tribunal's finding meant doctors were obliged to treat strangers they meet in a social setting, even if they are not in a state where they are permitted to practice medicine.
"A doctor who fails to do so is, in the view of the tribunal, a danger to public health and safety whose right to practice medicine must be suspended immediately," he said.
"The decision, if left unturned, creates a very dangerous precedent which applies to every Australian medical practitioner".
Dr Nitschke's barrister, Peter Nugent, said it was an error of law for the tribunal not to consider the "enormous body of medical literature addressing the issue of rational suicide". He expects the Supreme Court appeal to be listed for hearing in coming months.
Dr Nitschke said: "Voluntary euthanasia and rational suicide are very challenging issues for the medical profession.  It is cases such as this which will hopefully encourage the medical profession to face the harsh reality that the belief held by many elderly people, and some who are not, that no doctor has the right to tell them when they can or can't exit this life – can be rational and not a product of depression or mental illness."
"We might not like or agree with such decisions but they cannot be interpreted as meaning that person is depressed or mentally incompetent. Nothing could be further from the truth," he said.

Euthanasia campaigner Nitschke investigated over more deaths

Date

September 28, 2014

Julie-Anne Davies

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Dr Philip Nitschke, who now faces a police investigation and expulsion by the Australian Medical Association, having already been suspended by the Medical Board of Australia in July. Photo: David Mariuz

Embattled euthanasia campaigner Dr Philip Nitschke is being investigated by police in every Australian state over his possible role in nearly 20 deaths in the past three years, all of them apparently suicides.

The latest investigation, by Victoria Police, concerns the death of a 55-year-old Geelong man who allegedly killed himself using a do-it-yourself kit bought though a company affiliated with Exit International, the pro-euthanasia organisation founded by Dr Nitschke. 

All of the deaths being investigated involved the use of the two suicide methods promoted by Dr Nitschke, the lethal drug, Nembutal or a nitrogen inhalant device.

A number of coronial inquests are already under way into the deaths.

A Fairfax investigation has found that Victoria Police have obtained a warrant to search the Telstra records of the Geelong man, Ross Currie, prior to his death in the remote Otway National Park on May 25.

Police believe that emails between Mr Currie and Exit International, Dr Nitschke and Mad Dog Brewing, the company which markets the nitrogen inhalent equipment, will provide some insight into Mr Currie's mental state prior to his death.

It can also be revealed that Dr Nitschke faces expulsion by the Australian Medical Association when its Northern Territory branch Council meets in November, after a move to suspend him last month failed after an error in the paperwork.

Dr Nitschke, who was suspended by the Medical Board of Australia in July, said "attacks" on his character were "coming from everywhere".

"I have received a smattering of letters of support from doctors, some very senior but watching this avalanche rain down, I don't know if I'm going to survive this," he told The Sunday Age.

The decision to suspend Dr Nitschke using the board's emergency powers to  "protect  public health and safety" came after he admitted in an interview with the ABC that he had supported a 45-year-old Perth man, Nigel Brayley, in his decision to commit suicide, despite knowing the man was not terminally ill.

The AMA has cited the same "adverse event", saying Dr Nitschke's "professional behaviour … was not consistent with the high professional and ethical standards for the Australian medical profession promoted by the AMA."

In other developments, documents obtained by The Sunday Age reveal there are currently five separate medical board investigations, one dating as far back as 2011, into Dr Nitschke's conduct.

The complainants are:

• The Therapeutic Goods Administration's principal medical adviser, Dr Megan Keaney, alleged Dr Nitschke attempted to import the banned euthanasia drug Nembutal into Australia;
• An anti-euthanasia advocate, Paul Russell, alleged Dr Nitschke had developed and marketed a nitrogen delivery system for the sole purpose of assisting suicide;
• A Melbourne woman, Judith Taylor, who complained to the board after her 26-year-old son, Lucas, committed suicide using Nembutal after buying Dr Nitschke's euthanasia book, The Peaceful Pill Handbook. She is understood to have claimed that an online forum curated by Exit International encouraged her son to take his life;
• A West Australian pain specialist, Dr Mark Schutze, lodged a complaint against Dr Nitschke after he addressed a meeting of medical and nursing staff earlier this year at Perth's Charles Gairdner Hospital;
• The board, in its most recent – and ongoing – investigation, which led to Nitschke's suspension, concerns the circumstances surrounding Nigel Bayley's death as well as Dr Nitschke's general advocacy for the rights of people to commit suicide even if not terminally ill.  

Dr Nitschke has won the first round in his legal fight against the suspension, arguing successfully to have his appeal this November moved from South Australia to the Northern Territory.

The hearing, before a five-member panel, is set down for five days and is shaping up to be a test case on the idea of "rational suicide", whereby a person does not have to be severely depressed to make the decision to kill themselves.

It is rare for the board to use its special emergency powers to suspend a health practitioner. It is believed that there are only 11 reported cases where this power has been used. And, in all but one, the issue concerned doctors acting inappropriately with their patients, for example in cases of sexual assault, drug use or lack of surgical skill.

A spokeswoman for the board said it could not comment on "ongoing matters, as it will not compromise patient safety or the integrity of current investigations."

The Victorian Coroner would notcomment on how many Exit-related investigations are under way, but it is understood that in 2012 – the last public reporting period – there were eight assisted suicide inquiries, and Fairfax Media is aware of at least four more Exit-related deaths in Victoria being investigated now.

Support is available for anyone who may be distressed by calling SANE Helpline 1800 18 7263; Lifeline 131 114; Salvo Crisis Line (02) 8736 3295; beyondblue 1300 22 46 36

A life released by euthanasia

Date

September 28, 2014

Nick Miller

Europe Correspondent

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Belgian prisoner Frank Van Den Bleeken attending a hearing to determine if he will be allowed to be euthanised,

"My life has now absolutely no meaning. They may as well put a flower pot here."

For many years, Frank van den Bleeken has spent 23 hours of every day in a Belgian prison cell, roughly 2 metres by 5 metres.

The 50-year-old has had a long time to come to terms with his terrible crimes. He raped and killed a 19-year-old woman, Christiane Remacle, strangling her with her own stocking in an Antwerp forest in 1989.

It was not his first crime – he was first imprisoned at 21 for sexual offences. And it was not his last – when released from prison seven years later he attacked three people within weeks – one an 11-year-old girl. After that he was locked up indefinitely.

By his own admission, there is no chance of rehabilitation.

"I am a danger to society," he confessed in a recent documentary. He recognises the evil within him, and has no desire to re-enter the world.

Indeed, he wants to leave it. And any day now, he will – assisted by doctors under Belgium's controversial, world-leading euthanasia laws.

Last week van den Bleeken won a three-year legal battle to allow him to choose that option – leaving prison for a hospital where he will spend his last 48 hours before a doctor administers a fatal drug.

But some people – even leading euthanasia advocates – worry that his case is a sign euthanasia in Belgium has gone too far. Already made uncomfortable by a 27% year-on-year rise in reported euthanasia cases, they fear that too many of those were "borderline" and did not pass the strict tests required by law for physician-assisted death.

Until now, van den Bleeken has not been allowed to die. He has been on suicide watch  since he said in a TV interview that he was considering killing himself – he is monitored every 15 minutes to ensure that he doesn't have the chance. 

But in that interview van den Bleeken expressed his frustration with the life he was forced to continue living. 

"What am I supposed to do? What's the point in sitting here until the end of time and rotting away? I'd rather be euthanised," he said.

"I am a human being, and regardless of what I've done, I remain a human being. So yes, give me euthanasia."

Someone who commits a sexual crime should be given help, he complained, not just locked up – which does not help the person, the society or the victims.

He has a point – Belgium's penal system is notoriously bad for inmates with mental disorders, who are held in old, overcrowded and understaffed prison wings.

His lawyer, Jos Vander Velpen, said two prominent psychiatrists had confirmed that his client was "suffering in an unbearable, enduring way and that his mental condition can never be treated properly". 

 "It's a medical question that is very, very, very delicate and very difficult," he told the Globe and Mail.

"I could never say that euthanasia is a good option because it's the end of life, but it has to be a humane life."

For four years he had felt he "couldn't stand to live like this any longer and could no longer accept the pain".

 "He knows he could live for another 30 years – he's in a good state physically – but in his mind he is very much dead," he told the Mirror.

Journalist Dirk Leestmans, who has been following van den Bleeken's story for years and first met him more than a decade ago, wrote last year that van den Bleeken has only  left the prison once – for his mother's funeral.

"Should we just respect the request of a man who says he has unbearable psychological suffering and therefore wants to end his life?" Leestmans wrote.

"Sometimes I am happy to be a journalist… because my job is to ask the question, not give the answer."

But one person to give a firm "no" to that question was, surprisingly, the man nicknamed Belgium's "Dr Death" – Dr Wim Distelmans, co-chairman of the commission set up to examine every case of assisted suicide.

The commission is supposed to refer cases to prosecutors if the proper legal hurdles have not been cleared – although in the 12 years that euthanasia has been legal in Belgium, not one case has been referred.

But Dr Distelmans was quoted in the Sunday Times predicting that van den Bleeken's case could be the first.

Dr Distelmans performed the world's first double euthanasia for twin brothers – Marc and Eddy Verbessem were born deaf, and learned at the age of 45 they were going blind. He said that caused "unbearable psychological suffering" for them.

And he also helped Nathan, born Nancy Verhelst, 44, after a botched sex change operation left her feeling like "a monster".

But  Dr Distelmans says the test of "unbearable suffering" should not and could not stretch to the experience of van den Bleeken – and he told the prisoner that himself, visiting him several times, assessing his case, then refusing his request to perform euthanasia.

"It is a failure of the system if euthanasia is allowed instead of therapy," he said.

Van den Bleeken found another physician who agreed to give the lethal injection.

 Dr Distelmans told De Standaard he knew 15 more prisoners who wanted euthanasia.

Belgium and the Netherlands legalised euthanasia in 2002, and Luxembourg in 2009. Switzerland has allowed assisted suicide (where the patient administers the lethal drug) since 1942.

While euthanasia numbers in the Netherlands have risen only slightly, in the last few years they have risen remarkably in Belgium. Last year the country logged a record 1800 cases, double that of six years before.

Dr Kenneth Chambaere is a researcher with the End-of-life Care Research Group at University of Brussels. The group runs a big project interviewing doctors after every end-of-life decision, and it is hoped that, once they crunch the data, they might get some answers on why the numbers are rising so quickly.

"The question is, of course, whether it is actually from people getting used to the application of the law and the procedure for euthanasia or whether it's expanding boundaries," Dr Chambaere said. "That's a question I don't have an answer for."

Their research has quelled some fears, showing that legalised euthanasia has dramatically reduced the numbers of "unrequested killing" – the medical shortening of life without proper consent. And it has not resulted in the separation of euthanasia from palliative care: instead, the two work together.

However, Dr Chambaere said, his group often hears complaints that the body set up to control and monitor euthanasia does not have the means or resources to do so properly. The review committee works from reports written by the doctors themselves – and they have no oversight of the estimate 5% of cases not reported to them.

"We do see some outlier cases, such as people who are not actually terminally ill, or people who are really depressed for a large number of years … are receiving euthanasia," he said. "This is a very delicate point in Belgium."

The group has also heard that some people with advanced dementia were receiving euthanasia – even though this should not be possible under the legal tests, which require conscious, mentally competent consent by the patient.

"These are borderline cases which we are seeing now. We saw them in the past also, but not in these numbers."

Criticism is building that the law is becoming more and more loosely interpreted, he said.

"Some terms that are used can be interpreted such as 'suffering unbearably'. What is unbearable? Some physicians will say 'I have to see that for myself' Other physicians will say 'no, this is a subjective thing, I cannot interfere with that. If the patient says he is suffering unbearably then I have to believe him'."

But it's important to keep perspective, Dr Chambaere said. Around 85% of all patients receiving euthanasia are still terminal cancer patients.

HAVE THE GREENS LOST THE PLOT OR DON'T THEY WANT VOTES ANY MORE?

It is difficult to know where to start at a time when a state election is almost upon us and the two major parties - or if you look at it from a left/right perspective, and we then have one party with a right wing and an ultra-right wing - and you know you can't vote for what they represent and you wonder who you will be able to vote for, and you thought maybe the Greens provided an alternative which would be viable and then the following:

Philip Nitschke slams 'shut-out by Senate' in euthanasia inquiry

Date

October 15, 2014 smh

·                      

Vanessa Desloires

·                             

Controversial euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke has accused the  Senate of shutting him out of an inquiry into a proposed Dying With Dignity law.

Dr Nitschke said that neither he nor his recently formed Voluntary Euthanasia Party were asked to speak at a hearing for the inquiry in Melbourne on Wednesday, despite representing the "largest and only national pro-euthanasia organisation in Australia".

The founder of Exit International blamed Greens senator Richard Di Natale, who has proposed the Dying with Dignity Bill, for the exclusion, and was angry that groups who had made "uncharitable and incorrect statements" about him in their submissions were invited to speak.  

It comes after the Medical Board of Australia suspended his licence to practice medicine due to concerns he supported the suicide of a man who was not terminally ill.

He was also recently criticised by The Australian Medical Association, Dying with Dignity Victoria and beyondblue.

So the Greens are a failure on the Euthanasia issue - and what else have they collapsed on? Think of Palestine/Israel and think of Lee Rhiannon and her pro-Palestinian support while she was a New South Wales state parliamentarian. Then she became a senator for the Greens in the Commonwealth parliament and joined the right-wing of the Greens in no longer supporting the Palestinians.

Where does it leave you as someone looking for a group or party to vote for?

Well as one of those voters it leaves me feeling it is all a waste of time and effort and as someone with a sense of humour is quoted as saying - don't vote - it only encourages them!