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Legalising euthanasia would leave patients vulnerable to collusion between unscrupulous doctors and family members, the Health Professions Council of South Africa has said. The Council is opposing an application by Cape Town resident Diethard Harck and his doctor, Dr Suzanne Walter, a palliative care specialist, to change the common law on euthanasia.
Harck and Walter want to decriminalise both physician-assisted suicide (PAS – where the doctor prescribes and the patient self-administers) and physician-assisted euthanasia (PAE – where the doctor administers any medicine to end life). Harck has motor neuron disease and Walter has multiple myeloma. Their evidence is being taken on commission before retired Judge Neels Claassen in case they are too ill, or have died when the case is heard later this year.
Picture: iStock
Motor neurone disease (MND) sufferer Dieter Harck has gone to court to fight for the right to end his life on his own terms. But, says the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA), it doesn’t have to be one or the other. Harck and his former palliative care specialist Dr Suzanne Walter have launched a bold new legal challenge to laws around assisted dying. They want the law changed to give effect to their rights to self-determination and allow for both physician-assisted suicide (PAS) – in which a doctor gives a patient a lethal dose of medication to administer.