Only 10% of healthcare practitioners are “decidedly willing” to take part in euthanasia in New Zealand, according to a Ministry of Health survey. 20% said they are “possibly willing”.

70% of New Zealand practitioners are not willing to euthanise patients, it has been found in a survey of 2,000 practitioners.

The Ministry of Health is expecting over a thousand requests for euthanasia during the first year of legalisation in the country, which comes into force on 7 November.

Last October, New Zealand voted to legalise euthanasia, despite opposition from such groups as The Salvation Army, which SPUC reported on last year.

65.2% of voters supported the “End of Life Choice Act”, which permits assisted dying for terminally ill patients with less than six months to live, if approved by two doctors.

While practitioners may opt out of euthanising patients, they are still required by law to refer such patients to Support and Consultation for End of Life Care New Zealand (SCENZ), which will find a willing practitioner.

SPUC comment

A SPUC spokesperson said: “The intentional ending of a life is, we know instinctually, an abnormal and inhuman action that a majority of medical practitioners do, in some sense, recognise, hence their unwillingness to participate, as this survey reveals.

“Placing the burden of killing on another is quite different to providing the life-ending assistance oneself, an act that goes against a doctor’s role in society to treat the sick and do no harm.

“Not only does such a law place a terrible burden on vulnerable patients, who might feel pressured into ending their lives, but it also encumbers doctors too, who are now expected to be dealers of death as well as carers of the sick.

“Many doctors recognise this contradiction, and so should we, as individuals and as a society that aspires to be caring, responsible and just.”

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