Oregon Expands Medical Aid in Dying Access

This week, Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed legislation to amend the Oregon Death with Dignity Act that allows doctors to waive the waiting period requirements for medical aid in dying if the patient is not expected to live long enough to complete them. The Act allows mentally capable, terminally ill adults with six months or less to live to have the option to request a doctor’s prescription for medication they can decide to take if their suffering becomes unbearable, and die peacefully in their sleep. The amendment, Senate Bill 579, was approved by the Senate in May and the House of Representatives last week and takes effect on Jan. 1, 2020. Currently in Oregon, and most of the nine other jurisdictions where medical aid in dying is statutorily authorized, the dying patient must make an oral and a written request for aid-in-dying medication to an attending physician. The patient must then wait 15 days before they can repeat the same request. In addition, the patient must wait 48 hours after submitting a written request for medical aid in dying before the physician can write a prescription for it. The amendment allows the doctor to make an exception to the waiting periods if the patient is likely to die before completing them. “Forcing eligible patients to die suffering unnecessarily while they wait 15 days, was not the intention of the Oregon law. We are grateful that the lawmakers in Oregon examined the evidence and data from more than 20 years of experienc...
Source: blog.bioethics.net - Category: Medical Ethics Authors: Tags: Health Care syndicated Source Type: blogs