Living wills rule out euthanasia need | Wairarapa News | Local News in Wairarapa

Masterton Hospital's former surgeon says "living wills" rule out the need for legal euthanasia - he also says assisted suicide runs counter to medical ethics.

Former GP Owen Prior, 82, is a long-time advocate for advance directives - instructions outlining specific, personal medical orders in the event that a person is mentally incapable of making decisions regarding their health.

He said everybody should get a living will drafted while still of sound mind - "while they've still got their nut power. Boy, I've been hocking them off for ages."

The euthanasia debate was reignited last month when dying Auckland GP John Pollock, 61, went public calling for a review of the law which prohibits euthanasia for dying and suffering Kiwis.

Mr Prior used a passage from Victorian poet Arthur Clough's The Last Decalogue to sum up his attitude to the ethics of euthanasia as they related to medicine; "Thou shalt not kill; but need'st not strive officiously to keep alive."

"The stance of the Medical Association is unequivocal - it's unethical to kill people and the job of doctors and nurses is to keep people alive," Mr Prior said.

"Ethically I don't think that the medical profession could agree with legalising euthanasia in this country."

Mr Prior said an advance directive for health care can been obtained from a doctor or lawyer and said he knew of no case where one had been challenged in court.

However, he warned that family members - as well as doctors and lawyers - must be informed of the agreement and consent to its specific instructions before it is signed.

Over the past 50 years Mr Prior said he had seen attitudes to euthanasia change - one recent survey showed that New Zealanders were split on the issue.

"I heartily agree that Joe Bloggs on the street can support euthanasia but I don't believe the medical profession, ethically, can do it."

Mr Prior said he knew of no Wairarapa doctors who would feel comfortable assisting euthanasia and said nurses should not be expected to take part in assisted suicide.

Mr Prior has signed his own living will and said the document "does away with the need to change the ethics of the medical profession" by legalising euthanasia.

Meanwhile, Mr Prior - who has performed numerous autopsies on suicide victims - also commented on the issue of opening up media reporting on suicide.

The issue was brought back into the public arena earlier this month after the Chief Coroner called for more relaxed rules around the reporting of suicide. He also released a table to media showing the methods used in suicides reported over the past three years, which lead to charges that this could encourage copycat behaviour.

"I'm not sure there are copycat suicides but I know from patients I've had, the patients of colleagues and the post mortems I've done on both young and old people who have obviously committed suicide that neither the family nor the doctor had any way of picking it," he said.

"It's almost impossible to pick what will trigger suicide in any one person."

Ultimately Mr Prior said he didn't know whether opening up media reporting would cause harm or good.