The death toll for New South Wales’ euthanasia and assisted suicide regime continues to rise, with data released last week revealing a shocking 50 per cent increase in the death rate since the end of February this year.
The 2023-24 annual report of the NSW Voluntary Assisted Dying Board was released last week but only covers the seven-month period from 28 November 2023 to 30 June 2024.
The data reveals that 398 people died in the 216 days captured by the report, with an additional 277 granted a prescription for lethal drugs.
To put this in context, euthanasia and assisted suicide already account for more than 1 per cent of deaths in NSW, which is higher than the 0.8 per cent of deaths in the US state of Oregon, where assisted suicide has been legal for 25 years.
Significantly, the report also reveals a dramatic increase in deaths post-February.
131 people died in the regime’s first three months of operation, which was an average of just under 10 deaths each week. At the time, this was a higher number of deaths than recorded by any other state in its initial phases.
However, in the next four months of operation, that is, in the period between 1 March and 30 June of this year, an additional 267 people died from euthanasia or assisted suicide, which represents more than 15 deaths per week.
In other words, there has already been a 50 per cent increase in weekly deaths compared to the first reporting period.
This substantial rise in deaths is one that, I thought, would make anyone ask questions about whether the state had gone too far, too quickly. Not the NSW Voluntary Assisted Dying Board, it seems.
In its report, the Board advocates for changes to law that would see death even more widely available, arguing for a change to the current federal ban on the use of telehealth for euthanasia consultations. “[The] Criminal Code Act 1995 significantly restricts voluntary assisted dying service in NSW,” wrote Board chair Professor Jenni Millbank. “[We] will continue to advocate for federal legislative changes to enable state and territory voluntary assisted dying laws to operate as they were designed to do.”
It is difficult to see how 398 deaths in seven months—almost two-thirds of which occurred in regional NSW—can be evidence of laws being “restrictive.”
In the report, the Board took the time to defend the number of regional deaths, anticipating questions being raised about why those in regional NSW appear to have better access to lethal drugs than to other forms of medical care. The report makes sure readers are aware that regional NSW includes “sizeable cities such as Wollongong and Newcastle” and even justifies the numbers by arguing that “the population of regional NSW tends to be older than that of Greater Sydney.”
Neither explanation works.
By the Board’s own admission, only 39.4 per cent of the entire NSW population lives in regional NSW, including those “sizeable cities” of Wollongong and Newcastle, and fewer than half of NSW’s over-60s population live in the regions. Whichever way you look at it, 63.8 per cent of euthanasia deaths in the regions is disproportionately high.
The other key thing to note is how easily so-called safeguards are circumvented. The euthanasia law requires a minimum of five days between a person making the first and final request for death but allows doctors to shorten this period if a person is likely to die or lose decision-making capacity within the five days. The report reveals that 95 made their final request to die in fewer than the minimum five days, demonstrating that this is not just used in “exceptional” circumstances but becoming reasonably common.
The short-lived experience in NSW tells a sorry tale of rapid uptake, neglect of life-saving health care in the regions and the skirting of safeguards. It is time for the politicians who advocated and voted for this law to now insist on a level of scrutiny that goes beyond the self-reporting of the Board.
On a personal note, thank you to everyone who prayed for my godson, Matthew. He was discharged from hospital last week and is happily home with his family.