It is Cheaper to Kill Patients than to Care for them

Labour MP Iain Lees-Galloway who is now reconsidering his proposal to resubmit the “End of Life Choice” bill to the ballot, is quoted in the Manawatu Standard on 13 November as saying; that he acknowledged the importance of palliative care and believed the bill “absolutely” did not undermine it (palliative care), ”Instead it gave everyone a choice.

This is an important statement; Right to Life challenges it, for it is simply untrue.

“If euthanasia and assisted suicide were legalized, this would adversely affect the priority and need placed on the development of palliative care standards and norms of practice already developed. Expert palliative care requires a commitment of health care dollars.
Euthanasia and assisted suicide is a financial, moral and ethical abdication of the duty of care for the most vulnerable in our community. With financial efficiency and expedience a health care priority, these killing methods may be irresistibly attractive in a system strapped for money and resources. Doctors and nurses should not be killers.

Dr Els Borst, former Minister of Health in Holland, who was the architect of the Dutch euthanasia law, guided the euthanasia law through the Dutch Parliament in 2002 now says that the medical care for the terminally ill has declined since the law was enacted. Many people “often ask for euthanasia out of fear” of inadequate palliative care because care and pain relief is so poor. Dr Borst added that a crisis had developed and that “to think that we have neatly arranged everything, is an illusion.”

In the event that this life threatening bill became law it would put pressure on palliative care doctors to be involved in the killing of their patients and assisting in their suicide. This would impose an intolerable burden on doctors committed to respecting the sanctity of life and introduce a culture of death into hospices which are organisations nobly dedicated to promoting a culture of life. We don’t want our palliative services to deteriorate because of the poison of euthanasia. Our community must unite to protect our hospices, patients and staff from this lethal threat.

Right to Life earnestly requests Mr Iain Lees-Galloway MP, to protect the excellent palliative care provided to the terminally ill in the 37 hospices in New Zealand, by reconsidering his proposal to resubmit the contentious “End of Life Choice “bill to the ballot. We can live without euthanasia. Can those who do not wish to die live with it?

Ken Orr

ENDS

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