GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: Victorian euthanasia bill one step closer to passing

domingo, 5 de noviembre de 2017

Victorian euthanasia bill one step closer to passing

Victorian euthanasia bill one step closer to passing

by Xavier Symons | 4 Nov 2017 |

Victoria’s euthanasia bill has passed a major hurdle, with the upper house voting to progress the bill to a committee stage before a final vote.

The Members of the Legislative Council voted 22-18 in favour of the bill after a second reading, and will now debate a range of proposed amendments aimed at strengthening safeguards and tightening eligibility criteria.

Parliament sat for two days as members gave impassioned speeches both for and against the proposed euthanasia scheme.

Labor MP Harriet Shing brought the chamber to tears as she described caring for her brother Patrick as his body was wracked with pain by aggressive prostate cancer that spread to his bones.

“We were hopeless and helpless,” she said. “I used to hear him weeping in his room at night when he thought I couldn’t hear”.

Liberal MP Inga Peulich said the debate had made her feel “sick to the stomach” and warned that she could faint before reaching the end of her speech, as she implored MPs to oppose the bill.

Among the proposed amendments to the bill are that the maximum life expectancy of patients be shortened from 12 to 6 months, and that more precautions be taken to ensure that ineligible individuals cannot access the lethal drugs.

Late last month the bill cleared the lower house of Parliament after a marathon four-day sitting.

Sunday, November 5, 2017

Songs about loneliness are legion and range from the soppy and sentimental, like Ray Orbison’s “Only the Lonely” to the irony of the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby”. I’ve always been a sucker for Ralph McTell’s “The Streets of London”, with its piercing lyrics about homeless people in a big city.

Perhaps the reason loneliness is such a potent theme is that we instinctively realise how dangerous it is.

It turns out that loneliness is (a) a major social and health issue and (b) a widespread phenomenon. One US researcher has even estimated that it affects as many as 45% of retired Americans. This seems far too much, but the levels are certainly high. And since it increases the odds of an early death by 26%, I’d call it a challenge for bioethics. How can we heal the frayed and broken bonds of social cohesion?

A feature in this week’s JAMA examines the cost of loneliness – and the lack of solutions. We report on it below.