judging from the attitudes of many doctors that would have to be the case because of the conscientious objection clause in the legislation. it could appear that the reason behind the push is to push the elderly out of a bed which will free up the bed and also diminish costs of keeping them alive. is marie stopes getting involved in this? could be quite lucrative for them
Palliative care doctors in WA pleaded for more funding, pointing out to the government that WA “has the lowest proportion of specialist palliative care doctors of any state in Australia.
We have 15 full-time equivalents for the state,” they wrote, “less than one third the number required to meet national benchmarks.”
Dr Hodsdon said he was not against terminally ill patients wanting to end their own lives, but was yet to have spoken to a fellow GP in favour of voluntary assisted dying.
He said after 40 years as a regional GP, 99.9 per cent of his patients expressed they wanted to live as long as possible and it was his job to make the journey comfortable.
“I would be happy to refer a patient to the hospital so they could see a specialist and I think at the moment it is just two GPs that need to sign off and that worries me,” Dr Hodsdon said.
