There were more 540,000 deaths in SA last year, according to the Medical Research Council. We can be sure many of these people had neither a pain-free nor a dignified death. Palliative care services are in desperately short supply, as there is meagre local support and international funding has dwindled. The Association for Palliative Care Centres estimating only about 15% of the need is met.
Irrespective of their access to palliative care, no patient in SA can be legally aided by a doctor to hasten their death when life becomes intolerable. There has been little public discourse on this sensitive issue since 2016 when the Supreme Court of Appeal overturned a high court ruling upholding terminally ill Robin Stransham-Ford’s application to safeguard a doctor from criminal prosecution or professional sanction for helping him end his life.
The appalling shortage of palliative care beds needs urgent attention. But that should not be a reason to duck the question of whether to decriminalise physician-assisted dying, in which a patient is provided with a lethal agent that they take themselves to end their own life, or physician-administered dying, in which a doctor does the deed.
The UK’s lower house of parliament conducted a notably sage and sober debate before it approved legislation on assisted dying earlier this month. There is no reason SA cannot take an equally level-headed approach and revive the discussion about what is best for this society.
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