As we have noted before, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation teamed up with Andrew Denton to push the case for euthanasia in the two debates held recently in South Australia. Early on in the first debate, I found myself in a discussion on live radio with one of the leaders in the Nurses Federation. At the time, Denton had been pushing the untruth that euthanasia was not killing. I saw it as my principle role to make sure that people understood what rubbish this indeed was. So, I wondered to the radio announcer whether or not the nurses would support euthanasia as they obviously were if, in fact, it was they that had to do the killing? The nurses boss brushed aside the question without really answering.It was only a few short weeks later when the second bill was introduced that we noted with horror that nurses were indeed able, under this new regimen, to kill their patients if authorised by a doctor. Continue reading

First published on The Leading Edge Blog of Brendan Malone. Ed: we have confirmed with Brendan that he knows the nurse personally even though this post was published anonymously.I'm a registered nurse, of admittedly only a short career of seven years. I worked for three years in the hospital wing of a rest home as I studied, and since graduation I have worked in various hospitals around the country. Continue reading

Nurses voice concerns over Dying with Dignity Bill This article by Karen Keast first appeared at the Nursing Careers Adult Health website on the 14-10-2014The Australian Greens' proposed voluntary euthanasia legislation has received a mixed response from nurses. Continue reading

This lack of humanity and vision should be worrisome to everyone, including retirees, older persons, individuals with any type of disability (emotional or physical) and residents of long-term care facilities. Instead of recognizing the strides that have been made in the management of pain and noxious symptoms by hospice palliative care specialists over more than three decades, a few want to kill or be killed as a solution. So much for the so-called demanding autonomy of "I want what I want when I want it."We are experiencing a death by execution culture, morbidly concentrating on euthanizing and hastening death. The more gruesome the situation, the more it is capitalized on and highlighted. What happens that Canadians must suffer any type of painful death? It signifies failure in a system that knows better. We are failing to teach hospice palliative care and pain management for all types of pain - physical, emotional, spiritual/ existential - to our nursing and medical students. We fail to provide funding for excellence in end-of-life care. We fail to conduct ongoing education for our current care providers. We have failed to teach Canadians what is and should be available to everyone during a life-threatening or terminal illness. Continue reading