History of DWDV Activity

DWDV Activity history

• 1985: Helga Kuhse (DWDV) persuades Health Minister David White to establish a Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry into Dying with Dignity. This Inquiry rejected the ‘right to die’ but did recommend formally legalizing the common law right to refuse treatment. This Inquiry led directly to the Victorian Medical Treatment Act, establishing the right to refuse treatment and the right to appoint a Medical Enduring Power of Attorney. The Act also included the statement that the Parliament believed “it was desirable that dying patients receive maximum relief of pain and suffering”.
• 1992: DWDV developed, with the assistance of Prof. David Kelly (former Chair of the Law Reform Commission), model legislation for both voluntary euthanasia and physician assisted suicide. This model was used by Marshall Perron (Chief Minister of NT) as the basis for his Rights of the Terminally Ill Act (ROTI).
• 1995: DWDV President Dr. Rodney Syme advised Marshall Perron on medical aspects of the campaign to Legislate ROTI, and Kuhse and Syme gave evidence at the NT Parliamentary Inquiry into ROTI, which was passed in 1995.
• 1995: DWDV organizes the ‘Melbourne Seven’ – seven doctors who wrote to the Victorian Premier stating that they had helped their patients to die, and urging him to change the law.
• 1996-2000: DWDV President Dr. Rodney Syme reports three deaths to the Coroner – in each case, death was hastened by terminal sedation. Two were cancer patients, one had multiple sclerosis, and all refused medical treatment, in particular food and fluids. The Coroner took four years to decide that the deaths were not outside acceptable medical care.
• 1998: DWDV organized and supported Philip Nitschke’s election campaign as an independent in Menzies, standing against Kevin Andrews. The candidate obtained a remarkable 10% of the vote.
• 1999: DWDV, through the efforts of its Secretary, has a review of the Medical Treatment Act adopted as Labor policy. (This was later revoked without explanation.)
• 2002: DWDV alerts Health Department to deficiencies in and abuses of the Medical Treatment Act, resulting in a major campaign to educate the public and health professionals about the Act.
• 2003: DWDV counsels and supports the family of BWV, a woman with dementia in a persistent vegetative state, whose life is maintained by tube feeding against her wishes. This leads to a Supreme Court decision that such tube feeding is medical treatment (not palliative care) that can be refused.
• 2005: DWDV counsels and supports a member in her application for the appointment of a guardian for her 95 year old aunt who is being kept alive with end stage dementia by tube feeding.
• 2005: Dr. Rodney Syme counsels a man with terminal cancer, giving him advice that gives him control over the end of his life. After two weeks of public advocacy Steve Guest takes his own life.
• 2005: DWDV members, active on the ALP Health Policy committee, achieve adoption of policy amending the MTA, in particular to give statutory legality to advance directives. The ALP State conference adopted this policy in Dec 2005.

Global History

A timeline of voluntary euthanasia legislation globally is available here...

A summary of the countries where dying with dignity is legal is available here...