The Government’s Assisted Decision Making (Capacity) Bill 2013 “fails to protect the conscience rights of medical professionals”, the Iona Institute has said.

In a statement released as the Bill was due to be passed by the Oireachtas today, Iona pointed out that the legislation – which provides for patients to write a legally binding request for refusal of medical treatment should they become mentally incapacitated sometime in the future – may force medical professionals to assist with what they might regard as euthanasia.

“The Bill provides no protection to nurses or doctors who have a conscientious objection to removing artificially delivered food and water from a patient which would obviously result in the patient’s death,” Iona stated. “This includes patients who are not dying, such as a patient in a so-called ‘Persistently Vegetative State’. Many healthcare professionals view food and water, no matter how they are delivered, as basic care. This Bill potentially forces them to facilitate what they would regard as the euthanasia of a person under their care.”

Further, the statement says that a loophole in the legislation could see a directive preventing a doctor from reviving a patient admitted to hospital in an incapacitated state as a result of a suicide attempt. Iona pointed to the 2007 case of Kerrie Wooltorton in Britain who, during a bout of depression, wrote a directive saying that in the event of her becoming incapacitated she was not to be revived. Three days after writing the directive she was admitted to hospital having taken poison. The doctors were unable to treat her, due to the terms of her directive, and she died the following day.