Tag: nurses

New study threatens midwives’ freedom of conscience on abortion

CMF Blogs

Steve Fouch

In the latest bid to circumvent the increasing number of younger doctors being unwilling to perform abortions, a new report has challenged the need for some surgical abortions to be undertaken by doctors at all.

Sally Sheldon, a Law Professor at the University of Kent, has published a study into the 1967 Abortion Act and subsequent legal opinions to argue that in the case of vacuum aspiration (VAs), midwives or nurses should be able to carry out the procedure.

This, she argues is congruent with ‘recognition of nurse competences, follows government policy that patients should receive the right care, in the right place at the right time by appropriately trained staff, fits with guidance offered by relevant professional bodies, and offers the potential for developing more streamlined, cost-effective abortion services.’ . . . [Full text]

 

Politicians wrestle with doctors’ consciences in Victoria

Conscientious objection needs to be protected

MercatorNet
Reproduced with permission

Paul Russell*

As the Victorian Ministerial Advisory Panel on “assisted dying” makes ready to release its interim report sometime in April, The Age newspaper turned its attention to the matter of conscience whether a doctor may refuse to take part in any action that would bring about the premature and deliberate death of a person.

Conscience – or the ability to draw upon one’s own personal belief system in making a decision about an action – plays out at different levels in any debate on euthanasia and assisted suicide. . . [Full text]

 

Scarborough health practitioners stand against assisted suicide

Doctors seek protection from policy requiring them to make referral

Scarborough Mirror

Dominik Kurek

A number of local healthcare practitioners fear their right to choose whether or not they participate in providing assisted suicide to patients is being taken away from them.

Assisted suicide became legal in Canada in June 2016.

The Canadian law to allow medical assistance in dying (MAID) followed a Supreme Court of Canada ruling that struck down the law forbidding physician assisted dying, saying the old law violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The federal law, however, makes no indication that healthcare professionals would have to participate in MAID.

But, a College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario policy requires practitioners who conscientiously object to MAID to provide an effective referral to a non-objecting, available and accessible physician, nurse practitioner or agency. . . [Full text]

 

Doctors will have right to refuse assisted death requests under planned reforms

The Age

Farrah Tomazin

Doctors will have the right to refuse to help terminally ill patients who wish to die provided they don’t obstruct people from seeking support elsewhere, under assisted dying laws to be drafted by the Andrews government.

In a high-level report to be considered by cabinet, an expert panel is set to recommend allowing doctors to hold a “conscientious objection” to physician-assisted death – similar to the provisions that allow them to refuse abortions in Victoria.

But medical clinicians who are willing to help patients end their life may be required to have extra training, and anyone who tries to pressure someone to die could face criminal sanctions in a bid to ensure there are strict safeguards against exploitation. . . [Full text]

Management of late gestation abortion of concern in Birmingham Women’s NHS Foundation Trust

Sean Murphy*

According to an inspection report of the Birmingham Women’s National Health Service Foundation Trust, the facility did not consistently provide women seeking abortion with information to prepare them for the possibility of the survival of an infant following a late gestation abortion, including the need to notify the coroner should the infant die. (p. 4, 15)  Apparently the outpatients’ clinic provided patients with this information verbally. (p. 16)

The effect of late term abortions on staff and patients is described as “distressing,”  one of the risks in need of identification, monitoring and mitigation(p.6).  Ward staff felt unprepared to respond to late term abortions involving the survival of an infant (p. 6), several complaining that they “had not received training that would equip them to deal with the physical and emotional aspects of advanced gestation abortions.” (p. 15, 18)

One issue was the need to develop “differential care pathways,” apparently related to decisions about how to manage a surviving or deceased infant based on the reason for the abortion. (p. 16)

Staff involved in what the report describes as a “new complex termination of pregnancy service” were not adequately prepared or engaged before it began, and “continued to express concerns” over a year after its introduction.  Staff had been allowed to opt out of the service, but several (apparently among those who remained) complained about “distress to women and how they felt ill prepared to care for them.” (p. 31)

The report also states, without explanation, “The trust must ensure all HSA1 certificates for termination of pregnancy are fully completed by the registered medical practitioners signing them.” (p. 34)  This may reflect a continuing problem with certification by physicians of the need for abortions, which is a legal requirement.  Among problems previously identified was the practice of signing the forms in advance without actually seeing a patient.

These elements of the report illustrate the practical realities that inform the decisions of some health care personnel who refuse to provide or participate in abortion.