November 13, 2014
Euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke says claims ‘vexatious’
Euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke says he is being held to higher standards than those expected from other doctors as he fights in a Darwin court to retain his right to practise medicine.
The South Australian branch of the medical board used its emergency powers to suspend Dr Nitschke’s right to practice medicine after media reports he supported a Western Australian man, Nigel Brayley, who was not terminally ill but had decided to take his own life.
Police were investigating the murder of Mr Brayley’s wife when he died. He had also been involved with another woman who had disappeared.
The Darwin medical tribunal has heard that both the board and Dr Nitschke agree that he was not treating Mr Brayley before his death, but had met him briefly as part of his advocacy with euthanasia group Exit International.
Mr Brayley told Dr Nitschke he had sought help from doctors and other sources for his problems but had decided to end his life.
Dr Nitschke’s lawyer Peter Nugent, who is has terminal cancer and has taken time off from treatment for the case, said Dr Nitschke had no obligation to act as his doctor.
“Simply because a person comes up to a doctor and says ‘I’m thinking of taking my life’… a doctor is under no duty at all to make further inquiry of that person, even though some doctors might,” he said. “What it will be saying to the community [if you uphold his suspension] is ‘we will suspend you if you engage in a certain type of conduct we don’t like, even if you are allowed to’.”
But barrister Lisa Chapman, acting for the medical board, said Dr Nitschke had a professional obligation as a doctor to assess Mr Brayley to ensure that he was not suffering from a mental illness.
Dr Nitschke has said he believes even if someone is suffering from depression, particularly if it is moderate or mild, they may be capable of making a rational decision to suicide. He said he rejects people from his meetings only if they are clearly mentally unwell.
“These are not medical decisions,” he said. “If I exclude someone from a meeting I’m not acting as a doctor, I’m acting as a person who is exercising some degree of common sense”.
He said the medical community was increasingly defining a normal human range of behaviour as sickness, which must be treated by a doctor.
“The assumption by the legal profession is that you are rational unless proven otherwise, butthe assumption of the medical profession is every person is a potential carrier of a disease [like depression],” he said.
He said he could not medically assess every person he met who wanted to end their life, and this would not be expected from other doctors. He said many of the complaints against him were vexatious.
But Ms Chapman said as a doctor he should have properly assessed Mr Brayley’s state of mind.
“You can’t say that today I’m going to be a registered medical practitioner but tomorrow I’m not going to be,” she said. “It’s not a matter of saying I’m going to decide when I wear that hat. The legislative scheme is that you wear that hat all the time.”
She said doctors should assess the mental health of someone they met who was suicidal as a matter of urgency, including asking what medication they were taking and treatment they were receiving, but there was “no evidence” Dr Nitschke had done so.
She said the medical board had a duty to suspend Dr Nitschke as an interim measure in case he advised any person who was mentally ill and committed suicide, regardless if that was in his role of a doctor.
She also called Dr Nitschke’s account of his interactions with Mr Brayley “unsatisfactory”, questioning whether he had had the number of conversations with Mr Brayley he said he had.
The hearing continues.