8 October 2008 – Oregon, USA An article published in today’s issue of the British Medical Journal raises serious issues regarding inadequate safeguards in Oregon’s Assisted Suicide Law. The researchers assessed 58 individuals who had requested assisted suicide for clinical depression and anxiety. According to the BMJ study:
The Death with Dignity Act requires that if the prescribing or consulting physician is concerned that the patient’s judgment is impaired by amental disorder (such as depression) the patient must be referred to a psychiatrist or a psychologist. No drug can be prescribed until the mental health professional determines that the patient does not have a mental disorder causing impaired judgment.
However, they found that clinical depression and anxiety were frequently present among many who requested assisted suicide and:
In 2007 none of the people who died by lethal ingestion in Oregon had been evaluated by a psychiatrist or a psychologist. Healthcare professionals, however, often fail to recognise depression, particularly among medically ill patients.
While they found that most of the individuals who actually died as a result of assisted suicide did not suffer from clinical depression, about 20% of those who were assisted to kill themselves actually had clinical depression. This provides strong evidence that the safeguards are inadequate. For more on this study see the Not Dead Yet Blog and US News and World Report.
Tags: Assisted Suicide, Research
