Dr. Kristin Good:

The feedback from practitioners who provide the assisted dying service is overwhelmingly positive. They describe it as the most rewarding medicine they have ever practised. They also describe it as the most complex and challenging medicine they have ever practised. They say it is not suitable for junior doctors because making the right decision requires clinical expertise. We did a post-implementation review during which practitioners were interviewed, so we have evidence gathered by Malatest International, which is independent of the Ministry of Health, which confirms that practitioners find it rewarding. The other confirmation of that is that we have had an extremely stable workforce. We have lost a single practitioner in the past two years because he became overwhelmed by providing an assisted dying service. We have not lost any other practitioner, other than to moving overseas or for some other reason. It is a rewarding form of medicine for practitioners.

I will add to Mr. Seymour's comments on how people identified how they chose between self-administration and practitioner administration to point out that a practitioner is always present when the medication is delivered. That is different from other jurisdictions. The attending medical practitioner, who is the doctor who does the first assessment, is always present at administration. The method chosen can change up to the last moment. People can make a decision to have oral medication and then change to intravenous medication. They can make an initial decision to deliver it to themselves and then change to intravenous medication. That demonstrates the importance of having a practitioner present. The overwhelming majority chooses intravenous administration and the vast majority chooses to have the practitioner deliver it, as Mr. Seymour outlined.

The reasons given for self-administration are interesting. They are that these people have a sense of loss of control, that things are being done to them. The main two reasons people choose self-administration over intravenous administration is to regain a sense of control and in some cases, it is also to save the medical practitioner from having to administer the medication.