Acknowledging their deficiencies in end-of-life care, the Dutch government has made an effort to stimulate palliative care at six major medical centers throughout the country in the past five years in the hope of improving the care of dying patients. Simultaneously, initiatives for training professionals caring for terminally ill patients were undertaken. More than 100 hospices were also established.
Even if the Dutch experience suggests that engaging physicians in palliative care is harder when the easier option of euthanasia is available, for a significant number such training has become a welcome option. A number of physicians who received the training have publicly expressed their regrets over having previously euthanized patients because they had not known of any viable option. Such expressions of regret would have been inconceivable five years ago.
Developments of the last five years may be having a measurable effect. In contrast to a 20% increase in euthanasia cases from 1991 to 1995, the number of euthanasia cases in 2001 was no greater than in 1995. If education of Dutch doctors by palliative care instructors is successful, a gradual reduction in the number of cases of assisted suicide, euthanasia and involuntary euthanasia cases will be a measure of that success.
Oregon is experiencing many of the same problems as the Netherlands but is not doing nearly as much to combat them. Although legalizing only assisted suicide and not euthanasia, Oregon's law differs from the Dutch in one respect that virtually builds failure into the law.
Intolerable suffering that cannotbe relieved is not a basic requirement for assisted suicide in Oregon as itstill is in the Netherlands. Simply having a diagnosis of terminal illness with a prognosis of less than sixmonths to live is considered a sufficient criterion. This shifts the focus from relieving the suffering of dyingpatients desperate enough to consider hastening death to meeting statutory requirements for assisted suicide. It encourages physicians to go through the motions of offering palliative care, providing serious psychiatric consultation or making an effort to protect those vulnerable to coercion.
In Oregon, when a terminally ill patient makes a request for assisted suicide, physicians are required to point out that palliative care and hospice care are feasible alternatives. They are not required, however, to be knowledgeable about how to relieve either physical or emotional suffering in terminally ill patients. Without such knowledge, the physician cannot present feasible alternatives. Nor are physicians who lack this knowledge required to refer any patient requesting assisted suicide for consultation with a physician knowledgeable about palliative care.
The inadequacy of palliative care consultation in Oregon was underscored by a survey of Oregon physicians who received the first 142 requests for assisted suicide since the law went into effect. In only 13% of cases was a palliative care consultation recommended, and we do not know how many of these recommendations were actually implemented.
Two Oregon cases illustrate how compromised the offer of palliative care can become. The first patient, referred to by her physician as "Helen," was the first known case of physician-assisted suicide in the state. The case was publicized by the Compassion in Dying Federation, an advocacy organization for physician-assisted suicide.
