Ms Ruthie Jeanneret1, Professor Ben White1, Dr Eliana Close1, Professor Lindy Willmott1
1Australian Centre For Health Law Research, Faculty of Business and Law, School of Law, Queensland University Of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
Victoria’s voluntary assisted dying (“VAD”) regime has been operational since June 2019. In Canada, VAD – known as medical assistance in dying – has been legal since 2016. Australia and Canada have similar health and legal structures – both are federations with national and state/provincial laws regulating VAD – and in both countries VAD is relatively new.
Patients, potentially supported by families, may seek VAD and are therefore at the coalface of VAD regulation. Consequently, patients and families are most likely to suffer from ineffective regulation. For example, if VAD regulation is too proscriptive, patients may be practically unable to access a legal end of life choice, or may experience protracted suffering (the very thing VAD regimes are intended to prevent). Understanding their experiences and perspectives of how VAD regimes are operating in practice, and how they can be improved, is therefore paramount.
This project, which is part of a 4-year Australian Research Council Future Fellowship study, reports on early findings of interviews with patients and families involved in requesting or accessing VAD in Australia (Victoria) and Canada, focusing particularly on how regulation is similar and different in those jurisdictions, and what Victoria’s regime could learn from the Canadian experience. Findings will include data about patients’ and families’ experiences of accessing VAD, including eligibility assessment processes. Interviews also aim to understand perspectives on how VAD regulation (including laws, policies, training, and ethical codes) is operating in practice, what the barriers are for accessing VAD, and how regulation could be improved.
Biography:
Ms Jeanneret graduated from the University of Tasmania in 2017, with a Bachelor of Arts/Laws (First Class Honours). She is currently a PhD Student at the Queensland University of Technology. Her PhD is part of a 4-year Australian Research Council Future Fellowship study on optimal regulation of voluntary assisted dying.