Eve Crotty describes her mum Marion’s death as peaceful and painless. They were on the couch in their family home, Crotty on one side, her dad on the other, singing Sex on Fire by Kings of Leon. It was a running joke in the family – when Crotty was little, she thought the lyrics were “socks on fire”.
“No teenager should ever have to lose a parent. It was an extremely sad moment that will live with me forever, but her death was tranquil,” Crotty, now 21, says.
“It is a death that I never thought my mother would have.”
Marion died just shy of her 53rd birthday in August 2023 after accessing Victoria’s voluntary assisted dying scheme.
Crotty says her mother was a “bit of a control freak” and saw VAD as a way to reclaim bodily autonomy and dignity after years of end-stage renal failure and other chronic conditions, including blindness from type 1 diabetes.
But accessing the scheme took nine “traumatic” weeks. Despite her suffering, Crotty says Marion’s application was “caught up in red tape and bureaucracy” due to Victoria’s rigid eligibility criteria.
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Because dialysis might extend her life beyond six months, there was confusion as to whether it would prevent her from qualifying for the scheme. Under the law, VAD was only available to people with a prognosis of six months or less to live in the case of non-neurological conditions. But if Marion chose to stop treatment, Crotty says she “would not have lived long enough” to work through the steps required to access VAD.
“She was in limbo,” Crotty says.
This could soon change, with the Victorian government on Tuesday introducing legislation to parliament to expand the eligibility timeframe for all terminal illnesses to 12 months, which previously applied only to neurological conditions.
A “gag clause” that stopped doctors from initiating conversations about VAD with patients would be lifted, as would a ban on non-Australian citizens and non-permanent residents from accessing the scheme.
The reforms follow an independent review of Victoria’s assisted dying laws, released in February. The review found Victoria, which was the first state in Australia to pass VAD laws in 2017, had become a “more conservative model” when compared with the other states that followed.
The premier, Jacinta Allan, said Victoria had “looked carefully at what’s gone on in other states” and would make improvements to the state’s legislation a result.
“We’re doing this, quite simply, because people who are terminally ill, people who are nearing the end of their life, who are suffering in pain, deserve to have that choice,” Allan said.
The health minister, Mary-Anne Thomas, said the 13 amendments also included updates to the practitioner eligibility rules to allow more qualified doctors to deliver VAD, removing the requirement for third assessments for patients with neurodegenerative conditions and shortening the time period between the first and final request from nine days to five.
She said the changes would be reviewed three years after they take effect, which is expected to be in about 18 months.
“Every amendment is already in place in another jurisdiction,” Thomas said.
Thomas declined to expand the scheme to include people with dementia, despite some calls to the independent review for such a change.
“While we know that the experience of seeing a loved one live with dementia is really terrible experience, it can be very heartbreaking, we do not know enough about the experience of the person living with dementia,” Thomas said.
“Fundamental to our laws is that the person retains decision-making capacity at every step of the way, and that cannot be said of a person living with dementia.”
Both Labor and Coalition MPs will be given a conscience vote on the bill.
Crotty urged them all to speak to families who had experienced VAD. She says the moment her mother’s application was approved she saw a version of her she “hadn’t seen in years”.
“It’s almost like she regained a sense of purpose in life, and that purpose was to be with myself, with my brother, with my dad, with other members of her family … who came down to visit before she passed away,” she says.
“It was nothing short of remarkable, what voluntary assisted dying gave her.”
In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
