Page 3202 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 21 September 1994
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a non-terminally ill patient, an expert witness explained that, since he authorises the menus for convalescent home patients, all food consumed by the patients - even that which they eat from their dinner trays - constitutes "medical treatment".
That is a very broad definition, but that is a definition that has been accepted in the Superior Court of Connecticut.
In connection with this word "reasonable", she says:
Nowhere does it -
the Bill -
clarify what constitutes (or who would determine) what is reasonable. The ambiguous nature of such words could give rise to a situation where a care giver would consider spoon-feeding a troublesome 90-year-old patient to be an unreasonable use of time and effort.
Is that what we want? Is that what we mean? If it is, I must say that I am exceedingly troubled. As Rita Marker says, "this may not be the intent of the Bill, but its content would permit such discretionary decisions". I am not going to vote today - I have said that I will not - for a Bill that leaves that definition so wide open and leaves people with a discretion that can put the health professional into jeopardy. If the decision is challenged, that person has to appear in court and justify himself or herself. I am not going to do it when such a discretion can put in jeopardy somebody's life which perhaps need not be in such jeopardy.
I would ask members to think very seriously, before we go any further with the Bill, about what they believe these definitions mean. Do they really believe that they are sufficiently clear and give sufficient direction for health professionals and others to know what they mean, and are they in a position to know what the ramifications of misinterpreting them might be?
MR MOORE (11.12): Madam Speaker, I would like to clarify a couple of points raised by Mr Kaine about these definitions in clause 3. First I want to quote the bishop. I think it is important, Madam Speaker, to get that entirely into perspective. I will read from the article that I had in front of me from the Canberra Times last Friday. It says:
Bishop Power said that although much of what was contained in the Medical Treatment Bill was acceptable, labelling it as euthanasia was misleading.
This is a no-win situation, Madam Speaker, because, on the one hand, if I call it a euthanasia Bill, people will say that I am trying to confuse people; but if I call it the Medical Treatment Bill, as was the committee's wish, they say that I am trying to cover up that we are dealing with euthanasia.
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