Taiwanese Cabinet OKs Right To Die

Taiwanese cabinet OKs right to die, June 18, 2010.

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- The Executive Yuan (Cabinet) passed yesterday a draft revision of regulations that allows terminally ill patients or their family to express the wish of giving up futile medical rescue efforts.

After the amendment to the rules are ratified by lawmakers, patients can put such a notice on their national health insurance (NHI) cards.

Such notice will possess legally binding power like a formally written affidavit, according to the rules initiated by the Department of Health (DOH).

DOH officials said it is the natural duty for all medical workers to try their best to help and save all patients.

However, there are still limitations on the effects of emergency medical efforts despite of the advancement of medical science and instruments, they acknowledged.

They said it would only aggravate the suffering and pain of certain patients when intrusive, but futile, medical rescue efforts are made.

While the written affidavits on giving up continuing medical treatment are not always readily available, medical workers would be able to know the patients' wishes through the NHI cards that are carried all the time by almost all people living in Taiwan, they explained.

As of the end of May, 40,252 people in Taiwan have made clear their wish of refusing emergency

medical treatment by adding a note onto their NHI cards.

But there are still many more who have not yet taken such action.

More than 40,000 patients die of cancer alone each year in Taiwan, according to DOH statistics.

About 70 percent of terminally ill patients have the wish of not receiving continuing medical treatment, said the officials.

Patients may add the notice to their NHI cards at hospitals or register at the branch offices of the Bureau of National Health Insurance (BNHI) in their neighborhoods, they said.

When the patients are incapable of expressing their wishes, their family can relay their wishes for them, they said.

Patients who have made such registration can always make inquiries at the bureau branches or service centers to verify or confirm their own wishes, the officials.

They stressed the new rules will safeguard patients' rights and also respect their wishes.

The patients and their family can always change the wishes if they decide to delete the wish, enabling the hospitals to mount medical rescue efforts, the officials added.

From The China Post