Philip Nitschke wishes he had responded differently when Nigel Brayley told him he intended to end his life, despite having no terminal illness, the controversial doctor told the NT health professional review tribunal on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Giving unexpected testimony on the final day of the hearing in Darwin, Nitschke nevertheless stood by his assessment that the man had made a rational decision.<\/p>\n
Email correspondence between Brayley and Nitschke shown to the tribunal revealed that Brayley said he would forward his final letter to Nitschke. Nitschke replied he would be interested to read it.<\/p>\n
Under questioning, Nitschke, a director of the euthanasia advocacy group Exit International, conceded the email chain \u201cdoesn\u2019t look good\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI wish I\u2019d responded differently, hindsight is great,\u201d he told the tribunal. The sequence of events that followed, ending in his suspension by the Medical Board of Australia, could have been prevented by the addition of a single sentence, he said.<\/span><\/p>\n When asked what that sentence would be, Nitschke said \u201cI would be asking whether you\u2019re certain that this is the set course for you and do you want to talk about it. Had that sentence been in there I suspect the story would never have had the impact it did.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Nitschke is appealing the suspension of his medical licence by the Medical Board of Australia in July following allegations aired by the ABC program 730 that he counselled 45-year-old Brayley, who later took his own life with a euthanasia drug.<\/span><\/p>\n When Brayley wrote his final note \u2013 which was not seen by Nitschke \u2013 he revealed the reason for his suicide was \u201cthe ongoing harassment of the WA police, crimes squad and \u2026 one particular detective\u201d after an investigation into the death of Brayley\u2019s wife became a murder inquiry.<\/span><\/p>\n But the medical board claims Nitschke had a duty to intervene when Brayley told him of his intentions.<\/span><\/p>\n Nitschke\u2019s lawyers have maintained that because their client was not Brayley\u2019s doctor and did not counsel him, the suspension was instead driven by the board\u2019s distaste for Nitschke\u2019s views.<\/span><\/p>\n Nitschke was forced to defend his expression of interest in Brayley\u2019s last letter and disputed claims that it was dismissive.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIf someone offers you their suicide note and you say \u2018no, I\u2019m not interested\u2019 it strikes me as an unreasonable response,\u201d he said. \u201cI wasn\u2019t going to slap him in the face for it. It seemed to me to be a polite thing to do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n As Nitschke finished his testimony, he again outlined his support for not impeding the right of competent people to take the \u201clawful\u201d action of \u201crational suicide.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cValidating or acknowledging a person\u2019s thinking rather than dismissing them as pathological is rather therapeutic, and beneficial to society.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not beneficial to society to pathologise large slabs of behaviour,\u201d he told the tribunal.<\/span><\/p>\n He said that despite not treating patients in his surgery very often, he still wanted the return of his medical registration.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d been very publicly suspended,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t believe that the grounds on which that action was taken were grounds that I would accept. My medical degree is valuable. I\u2019m not about to say I don\u2019t use it so let\u2019s throw it away. I\u2019m proud of the degree and I don\u2019t want to lose it for unclear reasons or reasons I feel are unjust.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Nitschke earlier disputed the suggestion by lawyers for the medical board that his medical training necessarily informed his skills in making an assessment of an individual.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re effectively saying \u2018you have medical training therefore you\u2019re doing a medical assessment\u2019,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just me, who happens to have medical training.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIf a person comes up with some florid psychosis in the street you know this is not a [usual] encounter. If they then say they\u2019re thinking of suiciding there\u2019s alarm bells everywhere.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n He said that would be apparent to anyone, doctor or not.<\/span><\/p>\n Summing up, Nitschke\u2019s lawyer, Peter Nugent, said: \u201cThere is no nexus between Nitschke\u2019s work in advocacy or his relationship with Brayley and his status as a medical practitioner.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The question for the tribunal was whether Nitschke had engaged in any form of conduct of a certain kind which is a danger to any kind of person and if its necessary to continue the suspension because of public health and safety. He suggested \u201cno weight should be put on those complaints as evidence of anything other than their \u2026 dislike of something they saw on the ABC.\u201d<\/p>\n The board will now consider its verdict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Philip Nitschke wishes he had responded differently when Nigel Brayley told him he intended to end his life, despite having no terminal illness, the controversial doctor told the NT health professional review tribunal on Wednesday. Giving unexpected testimony on the final day of the hearing in Darwin, Nitschke nevertheless stood by his assessment that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n