Dying with Dignity ACT established a witness program in December 2025. The service provides witnesses for the written second request being signed by the person approved for voluntary assisted dying (VAD). The written request must be witnessed by two eligible persons and there are often cases where a person approved for VAD does not have anyone to act as a witness to their signature.
We currently have about 20 volunteers trained as witnesses.
We have been receiving on average one request a week from the ACT Voluntary Assisted Dying Care Navigator Service and we have completed 32 witnessings to date.
The ACT Minister for Health, Rachel Steven-Smith, recently wrote to DWDACT to say: “I would like to acknowledge the valuable role the Witnessing Program and your volunteers play by acting as witnesses for people accessing voluntary assisted dying and the close working relationship that has been established with the Voluntary Assisted Dying Care Navigator Service.”
A recent development is that some of our witnesses have agreed to be available to respond to witnessing requests for some of the towns in the Southern NSW Local Health District, especially Queanbeyan, which have not had access to a witnessing program till now. Those volunteers have been given a training briefing by Dying with Dignity New South Wales who will handle the logistics.