Melbourne, Australia, October 6th - 10th
It is with the greatest of pleasure that Dying With Dignity Victoria invites delegates to the 2010 World Federation of Right To Die Societies biennial global conference in Melbourne, Australia.
As a biennial conference, it is the premiere event on the global Dying With Dignity calendar...a rare occasion to meet with our friends and colleagues from around the world to share the latest in news, principles, practices and routes to reform.
The theme of this year’s conference is Dying With Dignity – Bridging Principles & Practice. Many jurisdictions have yet to achieve legislative reform (ours is no exception) despite ongoing concerted effort. A significant issue that fear campaigns filled with misinformation from opponents of reform can sometimes be effective in shutting down debate.
Therefore, the conference will focus on bridging principles and practices that help initiate and stimulate informed, respectful and rational debate amongst the public, legislators, medical care providers and other important stakeholders–and our leadership of and participation in it.
What are best practices in assisted dying for those suffering unrelievable torture of an end-of-life illness? How can we best engage relevant stakeholders and work together with them towards reform? Are health care practitioners well-informed in matters of end-of-life suffering, care and options and can we realistically contribute to improvements? How might we leverage the energy, knowledge, skills and experience of our network to create a desirable reform trajectory?
As you are probably only too aware, it is costly to operate a global conference, and for this conference there is a delegate registration fee for all delegates except the World Federation Board. Despite the delegate fee, which we have taken every effort to keep as low as possible for a substantial event such as this, significant funds have been contributed by our Society, and we are also deeply indebted to Dying With Dignity NSW, the Estate of Dr Clem Jones AO, and to the WF Board, for generous contributions towards costs. We hope that this revised financial model will serve as a framework that may allow smaller societies as well as more financial ones to host WF conferences in the future.
I extend a warm invitation to World Federation member societies to join with your friends and colleagues in Melbourne to continue working towards a better range of end-of-life options for all our communities.
We will continue to provide more detailed information about Australia, Melbourne, and the conference, over the coming months.
The Committee of Dying With Dignity Victoria looks forward to greeting you in October.
Neil Francis
DWDV President and CEO
Conference Chair
PS: The Dignity New Zealand Trust is hosting a further conference in Wellington on 14th and 15th October. More here...
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wfrtds conference 2010