PERSONAL STORIES

In 2019, when Victoria’s Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD) legislation became operative, DWDV acknowledged the difficulty some individuals had accessing independent witnesses to sign the written request component of the VAD process.

Consequently, we sent out an email asking DWDV members to volunteer their time and fulfil the role of an independent witness.

We were overwhelmed by the number of DWDV members who volunteered, probably not entirely sure what their inclusion in the process entailed! Amongst those who responded to our email request were Dietmar and James.

They were paired as witnesses in November 2021, by our General Manager, Nat, who oversees our Witnessing Program. They immediately bonded, striking up a conversation following their initial witnessing. They were both keen cyclists with engineering backgrounds.

It wasn’t long before they started carpooling to requests and catching up for coffee. Together they generously offered to help VAD participants on 15 occasions. They even offered their services during Covid, as can be seen in the image from August 2023, at Moorabbin Hospital.

Tragically James died at the end of October 2023, in Switzerland, where he had been accompanied by his friend Stephanie. Dietmar met with Stephanie in November 2023 and suggested that she, like James, may like to become a DWDV volunteer witness. She agreed straight away with a “why not?” response and she joined the team.

Consequently, Dietmar and Stephanie have kept in touch and now often attend witness requests together.

We are so grateful to all our wonderful witnesses, but regard the story of Dietmar and James to be a very special one.

Volunteering is an extremely rewarding experience but sometimes the rewards are unexpected and so very precious.