Category: Overseas

Details about Quebec’s Bill 52 – An, Act Respecting End of Life, Care – are now available. Check it out here for more details »..

A Dutch GP who now lives and works in New Zealand describes the morning he carried out a dying cancer sufferer’s wish.Read article » …

The Quebec National Assembly has been considering the need for a change in the law regarding medically assisted dying for over two years. A committee of legal experts presented their report, in French, to Quebec’s Minister of Health in January this year. Today, DWD is pleased to provide this unofficial…

Last month, following a decade of bitter political combat, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin signed the Patient Choice and Control at End of Life Act. Passage of the bill was a bittersweet triumph for the governor, who had made it part of his election platform and then encountered fierce opposition from…

Vermont is poised to join three other states permitting doctors to prescribe lethal doses of medication to terminally ill patients after the state House approved a compromise bill similar to Oregon’s 1997 law.Read the article » …

A YouGov poll commissioned for the final 2013 Westminster Faith Debate on assisted suicide this Thursday sheds light on the reasons people have for supporting or opposing a change in the law on assisted suicide – a change which would make it possible to help someone with an incurable disease…

Claudia Burzichelli doesn’t want to die like her dad. Nine years ago, her father, already afflicted withParkinson’s, killed himself with a gunshot to the head days after his release from a hospital where he had been treated for a heart attack. Burzichelli, 54, now suffering from kidney and lung cancer,…

A high-profile bill to allow physicians to help dying patients end their own lives was set aside Friday to preserve other proposals that lawmakers considered too vital to risk. Legislators also had concerns about whether the bill, which will be reintroduced during the 2014 session, had enough safeguards to ensure…

RETIRED GP Dr Iain Kerr said there needs to be a change in the law after he gave two pensioners sleeping tablets so they could kill themselves together.Read article » …

A study finds that Medicare patients near death are increasingly choosing hospice or palliative care over heroic measures in their last days — but that many go through futile hospitalizations and treatments first.Read article » …

The laws on assisted dying are “ridiculous” and “appalling”, according to a newly promoted health minister. Anna Soubry, who was appointed parliamentary under secretary at the Department of Health in this week’s reshuffle, called for greater “honesty” about when prosecutions would be brought for helping relatives to die and said…

As a retired MD, he has a rich life. He has strong support from his spouse, his friends and his church. His many volunteer activities give his life meaning and purpose. But Greg has HIV/AIDS. He lives with the knowledge that the time will come when his life becomes an…