A March 31 story in the Rogue Valley Times, reprinted in the Ashland.news, calls attention to increases in the number ob terminally ill persons using medical aid in dying, legally allowed by Oregon’s 26-year-old Death With Dignity Act.
Some perspective is warranted. Of over 44,000 deaths in Oregon in 2023, 367, or 0.8%, were medically assisted. In 2018 there were 168, around 0.5%. The 22 medically assisted deaths in Jackson County last year were four more than in 2022. Four more dying persons chose to voluntarily foreclose on uncomfortable remaining days they no longer found worthwhile.
Annual Death With Dignity reports on the Oregon Health Authority website show that growth in use of medically aid in dying has accelerated over the past five years. Several reasons explain this trend:
- Greater awareness of its availability.
- Less fear of ostracism or rejection by families or providers when bringing up the subject or making a request.
- Discouraging use of the term suicide, associated with shame or failure, and physician-assisted suicide (euthanasia), which remains illegal.
- Openness by hospice personnel to discuss medically assisted death when a patient brings up the topic.
- Referrals by physicians and social workers to an appropriate resource such as End of Life Choices Oregon, which in turn can counsel and guide patients through the Death With Dignity process, referring to local physician providers when necessary.
- Telehealth, which increased during the pandemic, now brings medical consultations more readily to very ill patients no longer able to leave home.
- Prescribing physicians can now exempt patients from the cumbersome 15-day waiting period between requests if death is judged to be imminent, applied to 28% of 2023 prescriptions. In past years it was not unusual for eligible patients to die while waiting to qualify for medical aid in dying.
Bill Southworth, M.D.
Ashland
Bill Southworth is a retired general internal medicine physician.
