Providing Legal Assisted Dying and Euthanasia Services in a Global Pandemic: Lessons for Ensuring Service Continuity.

Background & objectives: Identifying the impacts of COVID-19 on patients' and practitioners' access to legal assisted dying and euthanasia (AD&E) services is vital to informing service continuity in an ongoing pandemic.Methods: An anonymous online survey collected qualitative and quantitative data from health practitioners and agencies providing legal AD&E services (n = 89), complemented by semi-structured interviews with 18 survey respondents who volunteered.Results: Following governments' responses to the dynamic pandemic context, rates of AD&E inquiries and requests fluctuated across and within jurisdictions, based on a complex interaction of factors affecting patient access to AD&E agencies and assessors as services were disrupted. Service flexibility and nimbleness became key elements in continuing service availability and included calculated 'rule-breaking' considered justifiable to adhere to established bioethics. Making innovative adjustments to usual practice led to reviewing the effectiveness of AD&E services and laws, resulting in providers now improving services and lobbying for legislative change.

What keeps an island community COVID-19 free in a global pandemic?

The COVID pandemic has offered opportunities for islands and other relatively isolated communities to establish pandemic-protection boundaries. A July 2020 survey of Waiheke Island residents sought views on how the island had remained COVID-19 free, despite proximity to a city of 1.6 million (Auckland, NZ). Many attributed that status to 'pure luck' or a 'moat' effect. However, many also attributed freedom from COVID-19 to reinforcing high-level community cohesiveness and shared values. The Waiheke community's response can be seen as a microcosm of New Zealand as an island nation and an exemplar of a response to pandemic threats uniquely possible for small islands.

Nurses' views on legalising assisted dying in New Zealand: A cross-sectional study.

AIMS: This study investigated New Zealand nurses' views on legalising assisted dying across a range of clinical conditions, nurses' willingness to engage in legal assisted dying, potential deterrents and enablers to such engagement, and nurses' perceptions of the proper role of their professional bodies in relation to legalising assisted dying. BACKGROUND: A Bill for legalising assisted dying is currently before the New Zealand parliament. Of the 16 jurisdictions where assisted dying has been specifically legislated, only the Canadian federal statute provides nurses with explicit legal protection for their performance of assisted dying-related tasks. An absence of policy development and planning for safe nursing practice prior to legalisation of assisted dying results in a gap in professional support and guidance. DESIGN: Exploratory cross-sectional survey. RESPONDENTS: A self-selected sample of 475 New Zealand nurses responded to an anonymous online survey disseminated through the newsletters and websites of relevant medical and nursing professional bodies. A sub-sample of nurses who expressed support for or ambivalence about legalisation (n = 356): rated their level of support for legalising assisted dying in New Zealand across a range of medical conditions, and their willingness to participate in a range of assisted dying tasks; identified barriers and facilitators to potential participation; and assessed the responsibility of the professional bodies to provide practice supports. METHOD: Mixed-method approach using descriptive analysis of quantitative data; qualitative data were analysed thematically. RESULTS: Nurses supported legalisation at a rate (67%) significantly greater than that of doctors (37%) and for a diverse range of medical conditions. Most supporting nurses were willing to engage in the full range of relevant assisted dying roles. They identified several practical and ethical supports as essential to safe engagement, in particular practice guidelines, specific training, legal protections, clinical supervision and mentoring, and independent review of assisted dying service provision. They saw the facilitation of these supports as primarily the responsibility of their professional bodies. IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY: Nursing bodies should proactively facilitate workforce awareness and development of assisted dying policy and practice supports in anticipation of legalisation. This can be done through information campaigns and by adapting assisted dying policy, practice materials and systems already developed internationally. Nursing bodies need to engage in formulating legislation to ensure inclusion of explicit protections for participating nurses and to delegate relevant responsibilities to regulatory bodies.

Responses to assisted suicide requests: an interview study with Swiss palliative care physicians.

OBJECTIVES: Assisted suicide in Switzerland is mainly performed by right-to-die societies. Medical involvement is limited to the prescription of the drug and certification of eligibility. Palliative care has traditionally been perceived as generally opposed to assisted suicide, but little is known about palliative care physicians' involvement in assisted suicide practices. This paper aims to describe their perspectives and involvement in assisted suicide practices. METHODS: A qualitative interview study was conducted with 23 palliative care physicians across Switzerland. Thematic analysis was used to interpret data. RESULTS: Swiss palliative care physicians regularly receive assisted suicide requests while none reported having received specific training in managing these requests. Participants reported being involved in assisted suicide decision making most were not willing to prescribe the lethal drug. After advising patients of the limits on their involvement in assisted suicide, the majority explored the origins of the patient's request and offered alternatives. Many participants struggled to reconcile their understanding of palliative care principles with patients' wishes to exercise their autonomy. The majority of participants had no direct contact with right-to-die societies, many desired better collaboration. A desire was voiced for a more structured debate on assisted suicide availability in hospitals and clearer legal and institutional frameworks. CONCLUSIONS: The Swiss model of assisted suicide gives palliative care physicians opportunities to develop roles which are compatible with each practitioner's values, but may not correspond to patients' expectations. Specific education for all palliative care professionals and more structured ways to manage communication about assisted suicide are warranted.

New Zealand doctors' and nurses' views on legalising assisted dying in New Zealand.

BACKGROUND: Assisted dying (AD) has been legalised by statute or court decisions in at least 15 jurisdictions internationally. Nonetheless, only three medical professional bodies (and none in nursing) across those jurisdictions have proactively developed authorised policy, practice standards, guidelines or protocols, or other professional supports for health practitioners who may legally participate in AD services, and the majority internationally remain formally opposed to AD. There is a perceived likelihood that AD may be legalised in New Zealand soon. AIM: This study explored the views of doctors and nurses as to support for or opposition to legalising AD, including reasons for those views, what might deter generally willing doctors and nurses from providing AD services and what professional supports were perceived as essential or desirable to enable willing engagement in AD service provision. RESULTS: While only 37% of doctors supported legalising AD in New Zealand, 67% of nurses were supportive. Of those respondents who were willing in principle to provide AD services, large majorities identified a range of practical and ethical professional supports as essential to safe practitioner engagement. Those respondents overwhelmingly saw the provision of most of those supports as the responsibility of the medical and nursing professional bodies. CONCLUSION: There is a substantial cohort of doctors and nurses in New Zealand who support legalising AD, potentially sufficient for reasonable seeker access to AD services once legalised. However, many doctors in particular still oppose AD, and international research shows that the main barrier to access to legal AD is a lack of capacity and capability among health professionals, due in large part to several related factors, in particular: a lack of either accredited training and education for the AD provider tasks and roles; inadequate immunities within the legislation to protect participating professionals; and most importantly, a lack of practice standards and guidelines authorised by the relevant medical and nursing professional bodies. The challenge is for such protections to be available well in advance of legalisation, so that health practitioners are not at risk ethically or otherwise in early participation.