Tragic Overlap: Coroner’s Findings Highlight Flaws in Voluntary Assisted Dying Scheme After Man’s Death from Wife’s Medication

Sep 12, 2024 | Publication

A man (ABC ) who took a voluntary assisted dying substance intended for his wife was found dead at home by his adult daughter. ABC was in his 80s at the time of his death.

The spouse of ABC was a Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD) patient.

The VAD patient, the wife of ABC, was unable to use her VAD medication supplied for self-administration at home so later received a practitioner administered medication and died in hospital.

ABC was grieving the death of his wife at the time he took the VAD medication which was intended for his wife.

The VAD medication was not collected from the home of ABC following his wife’s death and was in an opened box, at his home on the kitchen table.

The unused VAD medication had not been returned/collected and that was later used by ABC, who died at home.

The death of the spouse of ABC occurred 107 days after the implementation of the VAD scheme.  

The Coroner made findings as to the death of ABC and made recommendations, to the effect that control of a VAD substance should remain under the control of an authorised health professional (see paragraph 39) and that an authorised health professional should always be present at the death of a VAD patient (see paragraphs 40 – 46).

The Coroner stated the following at paragraph 35 – “ABC’s death is not simply a ‘one-off’ anomaly or solitary aberration.”

In its findings, the Coroner referred to the evidence of a health practitioner who gave evidence of a number ‘near misses’ in respect to the VAD scheme. These include instances where people required the intervention of a health practitioner administering a supplementary IV VAD dosage to ensure that patient’s death. The practitioner gave examples of how one patient was still alive after 20 hours, and another who consumed alcohol before they took their VAD medication and then promptly vomited up a significant proportion of it and lived for 6 hours. Each individual required additional immediate medical practitioner oversight and intervention to ensure they passed.

The Coroner stated the following at paragraph 34 – “It appears reasonable to conclude that without that further VAD intervention these people may well have been left very significantly health-compromised by, in my view, the failure of the current system.”

The Court findings can be read here.

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