Home Health & Hospice Week

Conflicted medical providers may opt out of the controversial law.

When they went to the polls last month, voters in the state of Washington approved Initiative 1000, giving terminally ill people the option of medically assisted suicide. But even though the measure passed, many Washington State health care providers are speaking out against it.

Spokane-based KREM 2 News reported that when asked about assisted suicide, "every local health care provider [it] talked to in the Spokane area will not offer it to patients."

Providence Health Services, one of the largest health care providers in Washington, released the following statement for Sacred Heart Medical Center, KREM 2 reported:

"We do not support physician-assisted suicide," the Medical Center told the news station. "This position is grounded in our basic values of the respect for the sacredness of life ... and the respect for health care professionals. We believe that people are stewards of their own lives; we may not unduly prolong nor hasten the natural process of dying."

Hospice of Spokane will not participate in assisted suicide either, KREM reported.

Northwest Public Radio reporter Colin Fogarty said that Providence Health Systems was actually writing rules against its doctors or employees helping patients end their lives under the new law. Catholic health care providers such as Providence follow ethical guidelines approved by American Catholic bishops, Fogarty said. The church opposes Initiative 1000, along with Oregon's 11-year-old Death with Dignity Act. Both laws allow terminally ill people to ask a doctor for a lethal dose of drugs.

Meanwhile, lawmakers could face the decision of whether state-paid health insurance will cover the lethal doses of medicine, noted an article in The Olympian.

Oregon's public health program does cover the drugs. But it would take direct action by the Washington Legislature to pay for the drugs because no federal money may be used for them, according to the state Department of Social and Health Ser-vices, The Olympian reported.

"Our law is an 'opt-in' law for both the pharmacist and the physician," said Rob Miller, executive director of Compassion and Choices of Wash-ington, which supported I-1000 in the Olympian article. "No pharmacist or physician is required to participate."

But participants in the program shouldn't count on anonymity. The state Department of Health is establishing a program to track who uses the Death with Dignity Act and why, The Olympian noted. It estimates the program will cost $79,000 to start and run in its first two years.

That process will include writing rules about how use of the measure will be tracked, according to The Olympian. The public will be able to comment on those proposed rules.

Despite passage of the law, the Coalition Against Assisted Suicide has vowed to continue its opposition to the law. "The Coalition will continue to lead the fight against assisted suicide in Washington State and to assist other states or countries who face similarly lethal measures," it says on its Web site at www.noassistedsuicide.com.