DWDV fully supports the efforts of palliative care providers in Australia and will continue to support further funding for the palliative care industry.

However, there are instances where palliative care alone is insufficient in providing relief from intolerable suffering. For instance:

A motor neurone disease (MND) sufferer becomes progressively paralysed. Late in the disease, breathing can be seriously hindered. Many MND sufferers fear suffocating to death more than anything else and would prefer to go in a dignified manner whilst still being able to say goodbye to loved ones, rather than desperately gasping for breath.

Asbestosis sufferers not only gasp desperately for breath, but breathing is extremely painful.

A sufferer with cancer of the spine may have pain so severe that it can only be relieved by terminal sedation, whereby a patient is induced into a coma to relieve pain.

And for many patients, suffering is not just about pain. Suffering can include other factors such as loss of control of decision making, bowels or bladder, or such weakness that they are completely dependent on others for every intimate part of their daily care.