Dr. Eric Kelleher:

I will reply to that. I wish to highlight international data from the assisted dying process, and I have watched several of the hearings. Certainly information from Oregon is that most patients who opted for an assisted death have not been referred to a psychiatrist or, indeed, to any mental health clinician. There is actually a lack of information in that regard. We know from very large studies, and we are happy to send these on to the Deputy, that for patients who are newly diagnosed with a new cancer diagnosis, a progressive neuromuscular illness, such as motor neuron disease, end-stage COPD, that they experience increased suicidality in the first six months of that diagnosis and then the suicidality appears to downward trend. It is most unusual in the Oregon data that that is not seen. Some of that information is not recorded at all, so there are certainly gaps in the data that is gathered from Oregon. That has been highlighted in the literature and we can share that with the Deputy.