Some California hospitals are opting out of the state’s new assisted
suicide law, which allows qualifying adults diagnosed with a terminal
illness to request a lethal drug from their doctor.
The End of Life Option Act, signed in October and effective since June
9, made California the fourth state—along with Oregon (1997), Vermont
(2013), and Washington (2008)—to legalize some form of assisted suicide.
Euthanasia advocates applauded the bill, while critics warned it might
encourage physicians and family members to pressure patients to end
their own lives.
Hospitals are caught in the middle, but those with moral qualms about
assisted suicide, or that don’t have the resources to cater to it, are
opting out of the lethal network.
Enloe Medical Center in Chico, Calif., is one of several hospitals
choosing not to offer assisted suicide because the facility is not
equipped to help someone make the decision to end his or her life.
“Enloe believes that the personal choice to end life, as well as the
complexity of the process, often do not involve a stay in the hospital
and are best and most appropriately made in a personal setting, in
consultation with a family physician and trusted friends and family,”
hospital administrators told me in a prepared statement.
Hospital staff will not be allowed to evaluate someone seeking assisted
suicide or prescribe lethal drugs. Instead, Enloe will continue
offering pain relief and hospice care “to enhance the quality of
remaining life.”
Feather River Hospital in Paradise, Calif., affiliated with the
Seventh-day Adventist Church, opted out based on “a respect for all
human life,” administrators told the Chico Enterprise-Record.
Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, Calif., a top-rated hospital in Los
Angeles County, is still evaluating whether or not to provide the lethal
drugs.
“This is a complicated issue and we understand our community is
invested in this decision, so we are being thoughtful and deliberate in
our process,” administrators told me via email. “We continue to assess
whether our inpatient facility is the right setting for aid-in-dying
procedures.”
Doctors at Huntington voted “behind closed doors” to opt out, the Los
Angeles Times reported in early May. But the final decision rests with
the board of directors, which hasn’t made a move either way.
“Until such time, Huntington Hospital will fully comply with the act
regarding its patients and will ensure patients are made aware, as
appropriate, of the full range of end-of-life and palliative care
options available to them, both from our hospital and from other
providers,” the statement said.
Other major hospitals have opted in, including Kaiser Permanente,
Sutter Health, and The Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, according to
the Los Angeles Times.
The California Department of Public Health has refused to say how many
hospitals have already opted out of the law. The agency won’t have to
release the numbers until it issues its annual report in July 2017.
California’s law was based on Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act, the
nation’s first assisted suicide law. Last year, 132 persons in Oregon
took their lives with legal drugs, according to a 2015 report. The
number of Oregonians opting for assisted suicide has steadily increased
from 16 in 1998, and now totals 1,545 persons.
While California’s hospitals grapple with whether to provide lethal
drugs, doctors must make their own decision. Individual doctors can
always opt out, even if the hospital where they work has embraced the
law. The California Medical Association, after opposing a similar bill
in 2007, withdrew its opposition to the current law shortly before it
passed. But the American Medical Association still opposes assisted
suicide, calling it “fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s
role as healer.”
Courtesy: WORLD News Service
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