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The Right to Die

A recent decision of the West Australia Supreme Court has cast a renewed light on the right of all of us to make decisions ourselves in relation to our life and death in certain circumstances.

It involved a Mr Christian Rossiter who was a resident of the Bright Water Nursing Facility in Perth, Western Australia. His physical condition was poignant including:-

·         He was a quadriplegic;

·         He was unable to move or physically perform any function of life independently;

·         He could only wiggle one finger;

·         He could not feed or drink himself and was kept alive by a PEG feed;

·         He was not however terminally ill or dying.

·         He was capable of making his own decisions

He said he felt trapped in his own body and told the facility he wished to die but he was incapable of physically ending his own life. He directed the staff at the facility to discontinue his PEG feed so he could die.

The aged care facility was twixt as to what to do. On the one hand it wanted to respect Mr Rossiter’s wishes and on the other hand it had a legal duty to care for Mr Rossiter and provide the necessaries of life.

In the end the facility decided to apply to the Supreme Court of Western Australia for some directions.

In finding that Mr Rossiter had the right to determine whether he should or should not receive life sustaining measures, the court confirmed the old legal presumption that, provided a person has the necessary capacity, they have the right to consent to or refuse medical treatment even if the refusal results in their death.

This was despite the fact that another law also imposes a duty on people who care for others to provide the necessaries of life to that person to ensure they do not die.

The court reconciled the later duty by saying that that duty did not apply where people in Mr Rossiter’s position had the capacity to understand the consequences of withdrawing their life sustaining measures.

The decision is helpful in restating what the law has always been but also in clearly raising the complexities of determining whether a person has the capacity to make these decisions.

Ultimately, whether we should comply or not with a person’s wish about life sustaining measures will depend in large part upon whether they have the capacity to understand that decision.

If they do not, it may be necessary to rely upon any Advance Health Directive they may have made or the decision of an Enduring Attorney.

Whichever way, the issue is likely to be more common as we age into the future.