Ethics in healthcare-2005
There are two major pieces of legislation that will be having a significant impact on all health professionals in the next couple of years, and it is important that we are aware of them, and praying and supporting our members through these difficult times.
Joffe Bill
The House of Lords' Select Committee scrutinising Lord Joffe's Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill reported in April 2005 - and urged Parliament to debate assisted dying.
This Private Member's Bill, introduced by Lord Joffe seeks to legalise assisted suicide for competent adult patients who are 'terminally ill' and 'suffering unbearably'. Under this proposed legislation, patients who are unable to participate in assisted suicide will be able to receive euthanasia and all that will be required are the signatures of two doctors and two witnesses to the decision.
Suicide was decriminalised in Britain in 1961 in order to save desperate and often depressed people from the further stress of a criminal prosecution should they survive the attempt. However, it remained an offence to assist suicide, it being our duty as compassionate members of a community to preserve life. This goes even more for health professionals, whose primary responsibilities are to save life and reduce suffering.
This new proposed legislation would therefore significantly alter the relationship between healthcare professional and patient, giving health professionals a responsibility to assist patient in their request to end their life.
The Royal College of Nursing has maintained a stance in opposition to this bill, partly because there are concerns that nurses would be one of the main professional groups involved in assisting patients with suicide. The British Medical Association and several of the medical colleges and royal colleges however, have adopted a neutral stance in the last year, although before most were actively opposed to any form of euthanasia.
The concerns this raises is that if passed, this bill could open the floodgates to euthanasia in this country, an crate situation similar to that already found in the Netherlands and the US Sate of Oregon, where doctors and nurses are required to take action to end the lives of their patients. As Christians this is an issue of great concern.
Prayer
- that the case against assisted suicide would be clearly made as the Joffe Bill passes through parliament, and that the clear ethical, legal, professional, clinical and moral arguments against it would be heard and accepted by MPs and the Lords.
Mental Capacity Act
The Act, which comes into force on 1 April 2007, contains much that is good and necessary both to support mentally incapacitated people in making decisions, and to protect them from abuse and exploitation.
However, the Act gives statutory force to 'advance refusals' and 'proxy decisions', meaning that doctors and nurses could be legally required to withhold food and fluids in some situations where they believe such action clinically inappropriate. The Terri Schiavo case in the United Sates earlier this year illustrates the issue; here a young woman who had severe brain damage, but was otherwise physically healthy was allowed to starve and dehydrate to death because her husband, with power of attorney, claimed she had expressed a desire not to go on living if she ever ended up in such a state.
There are loopholes in the Act whereby non-dying mentally incapacitated patients can be starved and dehydrated to death in their 'best interests' either on the say so of those given power of attorney, or according to a legally binding advance directive. In other words, once again health professionals might be required to assist in the death of a patient.
Prayer
- for wisdom as Christian health professionals seek to respond constructively to this new law, much of which is good. Help them to make wise decisions in the face of potentially difficult choices forced upon them by loopholes in this law.
More information, including briefing papers and articles on these, and other ethical issues can be found at the Christian Medical Fellowship website at http://www.cmf.org.uk/ethics/
