November 13, 2014
Nitschke to fight medical board suspension
Euthanasia campaigner Philip Nitschke will argue rational adults have the right to information to help them end their lives, in an appeal against his medical board suspension.
Dr Nitschke is suspended from practising by the Medical Board of Australia over his links to a Perth man who committed suicide in May.
An appeal will begin in the Northern Territory Medical Tribunal on Monday with Dr Nitschke’s lawyers arguing the board got the decision “horribly wrong”.
The medical board’s stance is to suspend medical professionals who provide people with information on committing suicide, Dr Nitschke told reporters on Sunday.
“The board’s view is based on a simple premise – doctor knows best,” he said.
“The question is whether a rational adult should be prevented from having access to information which might be used by that person to engage in a lawful activity. That lawful activity is suicide.”
Dr Nitschke’s barrister Peter Nugent said the battle to overturn the suspension, an interim measure pending an inquiry, will centre on arguments that Dr Nitschke was never Nigel Brayley’s treating doctor.
Mr Brayley took the suicide drug Nembutal after attending a suicide workshop hosted by Dr Nitschke’s Exit International organisation, where he purchased a banned suicide handbook.
“We’ll be seeking to argue that at the first instance the board got it horribly wrong because first of all, they weren’t presented with all of the facts of the chap who suicided,” he said.
“They also didn’t take into account the fact that Philip was not his doctor, was not in a medical relationship with him at all and never has been.”
Mr Nugent said the hearing, which is scheduled to take up to five days in Darwin, will be a discussion about the availability of information.
“One side believes people ought to have access to information and to make decisions and the other, the medical board, says that no, a rational and competent adult cannot have information of that kind,” he said.