Dr. Greg Mewett:

I take the Senator's point. Palliative sedation can be provided at home and we do provide that under certain circumstances depending on the care set-up. There are all sorts of factors as to whether a patient can stay at home. This would have required much more intensive nursing than his family, who were already suffering in their own way, were able to provide. One of his options was to go into the palliative care unit where he would be intensely nursed and given palliative sedation.

This man had his medication at home for five months before he decided he would take it. By the way, he was certainly not suicidal. He was a very close friend of mine and he was not suicidal. It is an option at home. Palliative sedation is commonly expounded. We use it a lot in palliative medicine because many patients near the end of life are not going to qualify for voluntary assisted dying for a range of reasons. Palliative sedation as a way of relieving intractable suffering near the end of life is a very valid option but that does not mean it is an alternative to voluntary assisted dying. It is in the minds of some people but in patients' minds the question is why a doctor would render them socially dead, in other words, unconscious for the next week, when they could render themselves completely dead in 15 minutes. I mean, this is-----