Dr. Louise Campbell:

I am saying that the argument made by opponents of assisted dying is that people's requests will be granted because it is cheaper not to continue to provide intensive palliative care. That is a conjectural argument made by opponents of assisted dying. I do not agree with that and do not think it can be substantiated. One can have palliative care provision and legalised assisted dying operating in parallel and sometimes symbiotically within the same jurisdiction. They share similar goals, despite massive disagreement between the two approaches to intractable suffering at the end of life. The Belgians increased their funding for palliative care by 108% between 2003 and 2010. Most of that funding went into home palliative care, at approximately 70%. The overall health budget, by comparison, only increased by 2.34%. There was a massive increase in funding. At the same time as the introduction of the Belgian Act on Euthanasia in 2002, a companion Act was introduced to give every Belgian citizen the right to access quality palliative care.

The palliative care discipline is growing in all jurisdictions. It is not fully developed yet and there is considerable variability both across and within jurisdictions.