Page 2892 - Week 10 - Wednesday, 14 September 1994
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consequences of such a direction carefully to the person concerned. They must ensure that the person understands. If they appear not to understand the nature of what they have agreed to or signed, then the practitioner is not covered by the protections afforded in the Bill.
I note, incidentally, that the effect of this will be that sometimes the effluxion of time will tend to erode the effect of the direction. For example, if I were to complete a direction in a state of good health and then was injured in a car accident, and I arrive in hospital in a coma, then the medical practitioner obviously cannot explain to me the nature of my direction and ascertain that my intention is as set out in the document. Therefore the direction itself, as I read the Bill anyway, will lapse. So, it does not appear to provide as broad a protection as perhaps some people have suggested.
Practice is a matter which we have to take into account. What doctors and nurses do in our hospitals is a matter we have to consider carefully when looking at this legislation. Doctors say - and I base this on my own conversations with them and what appears in the transcript of the select committee's proceedings - that these matters are raised, and these sorts of decisions about the level of treatment, based on the wishes of patients, are taken on a daily basis in our hospitals. The question is: How clearly does this Bill accord with that practice? Does it reflect that practice? Does it make the arrangements certain and predictable?
Madam Speaker, one thing we can say for certain - and this is a matter which the proponents of the Bill, I think, need to bear in mind - is that the circumstances in which a valid direction to medical practitioners can be given by a person, for example, in a hospital are certainly very heavily regulated, probably more heavily regulated than is presently the case in a hospital. I doubt, for example, that a person who wanted to give a direction to their doctor at the present time would go through the rigmarole of having two persons present to witness that direction and having them sign a document possibly in the form that exists in the Schedule to this Bill. There is arguably a more onerous burden being placed on doctors in these circumstances than is the case in the present practices being used in our hospitals. The paperwork is more extensive; the processes to be gone through to legally comply with the legislation are more onerous. It appears, however, that doctors are prepared to accept that additional level of onerousness or that level of intrusive regulation of their practices in our hospitals in exchange for some measure of legal certainty.
Madam Speaker, I rarely have the opportunity, the privilege, of being able to come to this place and listen to the debate that goes on in here in an open-minded fashion. I confess that I generally arrive here with my mind made up about issues and I then proceed to debate and vote accordingly. I have heard the arguments about the origins of this Bill and, in fact, those origins do give me some considerable concern. That has been the main thrust of the argument against the legislation. It is true that instinctively I distrust Mr Moore's motives in this matter. Mr Moore's agenda for active euthanasia is very clear. He has made that statement from the outset, and I think he would not attempt to disguise it. It is part, obviously, of a broader agenda of his, and he perhaps sees it as an appropriate first step towards something more.
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