Retired Cork GP Dr Sinead Duggan touted the legislative ‘safeguards’ contained in the 2021 law.
“New Zealand’s legislation is very rigorous”, she claimed, “you have to have capacity [to make the choice]. You have to have inevitable death within a short period of time. You can’t approach the patient about it, the patient has to bring up the subject with their doctor – there are a lot of very strict criteria.
“They get a psychiatrist to see if there are mental health issues involved.” However, the law does not require anyone to see a psychiatrist.
Among the legislative requirements [3], the person must be aged 18 years or over, must suffer from a terminal illness that is likely to end their life within six months, must be in an advanced state of irreversible physical decline and must experience ‘unbearable suffering’.