\n<\/p>\n
E<\/span>ve Crotty describes her mum Marion\u2019s death as peaceful and painless. They were on the couch in their family home, Crotty on one side, her dad on the other, singing Sex on Fire by Kings of Leon. It was a running joke in the family \u2013 when Crotty was little, she thought the lyrics were \u201csocks on fire\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cNo teenager should ever have to lose a parent. It was an extremely sad moment that will live with me forever, but her death was tranquil,\u201d Crotty, now 21, says.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a death that I never thought my mother would have.\u201d<\/p>\n Marion died just shy of her 53rd birthday in August 2023 after accessing Victoria\u2019s voluntary assisted dying scheme.<\/p>\n Crotty says her mother was a \u201cbit of a control freak\u201d and saw VAD as a way to reclaim bodily autonomy and dignity after years of end-stage renal failure and other chronic conditions, including blindness from type 1 diabetes.<\/p>\n But accessing the scheme took nine \u201ctraumatic\u201d weeks. Despite her suffering, Crotty says Marion\u2019s application was \u201ccaught up in red tape and bureaucracy\u201d due to Victoria\u2019s rigid eligibility criteria.<\/p>\n Sign up: AU Breaking News email<\/p>\n Because dialysis might extend her life beyond six months, there was confusion as to whether it would prevent her from qualifying for the scheme. Under the law, VAD was only available to people with a prognosis of six months or less to live in the case of non-neurological conditions. But if Marion chose to stop treatment, Crotty says she \u201cwould not have lived long enough\u201d to work through the steps required to access VAD.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was in limbo,\u201d Crotty says.<\/p>\n This could soon change, with the Victorian government on Tuesday introducing legislation to parliament to expand the eligibility timeframe for all terminal illnesses to 12 months, which previously applied only to neurological conditions.<\/p>\n A \u201cgag clause\u201d that stopped doctors from initiating conversations about VAD with patients would be lifted, as would a ban on non-Australian citizens and non-permanent residents from accessing the scheme.<\/p>\n The reforms follow an independent review of Victoria\u2019s assisted dying laws, released in February. The review found Victoria, which was the first state in Australia to pass VAD laws in 2017, had become a \u201cmore conservative model\u201d when compared with the other states that followed.<\/p>\n The premier, Jacinta Allan, said Victoria had \u201clooked carefully at what\u2019s gone on in other states\u201d and would make improvements to the state\u2019s legislation a result.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re doing this, quite simply, because people who are terminally ill, people who are nearing the end of their life, who are suffering in pain, deserve to have that choice,\u201d Allan said.<\/p>\n The health minister, Mary-Anne Thomas, said the 13 amendments also included updates to the practitioner eligibility rules to allow more qualified doctors to deliver VAD, removing the requirement for third assessments for patients with neurodegenerative conditions and shortening the time period between the first and final request from nine days to five.<\/p>\n She said the changes would be reviewed three years after they take effect, which is expected to be in about 18 months.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/span><\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cEvery amendment is already in place in another jurisdiction,\u201d Thomas said.<\/p>\n Thomas declined to expand the scheme to include people with dementia, despite some calls to the independent review for such a change.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile we know that the experience of seeing a loved one live with dementia is really terrible experience, it can be very heartbreaking, we do not know enough about the experience of the person living with dementia,\u201d Thomas said.<\/p>\n \u201cFundamental to our laws is that the person retains decision-making capacity at every step of the way, and that cannot be said of a person living with dementia.\u201d<\/p>\n Both Labor and Coalition MPs will be given a conscience vote on the bill.<\/p>\n Crotty urged them all to speak to families who had experienced VAD. She says the moment her mother\u2019s application was approved she saw a version of her she \u201chadn\u2019t seen in years\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s almost like she regained a sense of purpose in life, and that purpose was to be with myself, with my brother, with my dad, with other members of her family \u2026 who came down to visit before she passed away,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was nothing short of remarkable, what voluntary assisted dying gave her.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Eve Crotty describes her mum Marion\u2019s death as peaceful and painless. They were on the couch in their family home, Crotty on one side, her dad on the other, singing Sex on Fire by Kings of Leon. It was a running joke in the family \u2013 when Crotty was little, she thought the lyrics were<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28088,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[3874,140,376,141,6485,16712,414,16711,7981,16713,7071],"class_list":{"0":"post-28087","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-access","9":"tag-assisted","10":"tag-death","11":"tag-dying","12":"tag-easier","13":"tag-eve","14":"tag-mps","15":"tag-tranquil","16":"tag-urging","17":"tag-victorian","18":"tag-voluntary"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}