Dr. Louise Campbell:

The second question was on the role of families. There is not enough research on this. It is a really important question because families can influence patients in all sorts of ways in terms of end of life decisions and for all sorts of reasons, not all of which are necessarily benign. In the situation described by Senator Black, the patient's family was opposing the proposal to discontinue treatment. The patient was effectively in a coma for many months. Statistically, the chances of coming out of a situation like that are something like one in a million. The request of the family was to prolong the treatment in the hope that he would recover and he did, which does not happen in most cases. This is a slightly different issue in that the treatment is intervening to keep the person alive until he or she putatively recovers but in a lot of cases, there is no chance of recovery. That is a medical judgment with some values built into it. The family has a role and can influence treatment.

In terms of the available data on assisted dying, a study in Washington State found that approximately 30% of patients did not tell their families that they were going to avail of assisted dying. This is a very complex question and we do not have data on the extent of family influence. However, as with any other decision, families can have an influence. Does that answer the Senator's question?