A new podcast series on Australia's voluntary assisted dying laws (VAD) that aims to address public confusion about eligibility, process and access to VAD begins this week.
- 10-series podcast interviews end-of-life law experts
- Each podcast designed to inform and aid in decision-making
- Podcasts covers such issues as comparison of state laws, barriers to access, and telehealth
The series is produced by PhD researchers Sinead Prince and Ruthie Jeanneret, from QUT School of Law, to address specifically what has worked well and what hasn't since Australian states legalised VAD.
Ms Prince said the podcasts were based on many years of research by Professor Ben White and Professor Lindy Willmott, founding members of QUT Australian Centre for Health Law Research (ACHLR), whose research had been central to the legalisation of VAD and development of VAD laws in Australia.
"A key aspect of the podcasts is to provide information or tips to make change, and we ask each interviewee what the listener needs to know (often busting myths), or can do, to help change VAD law and practice for the better in Australia," Ms Prince said.
"The series covers how VAD came to be and how it has worked in practice for patients and families in Victoria and Western Australia, as well as Queensland doctors' expectations about participating in VAD.
"The interviews also address nationwide issues like the bans on telehealth and on doctors initiating conversations on VAD, the lack of remuneration for providing practitioners, and institutional objections to providing VAD to patients."
Ms Jeanneret said that given the infancy of VAD systems in Australia and the differences among state laws around eligibility, it was important that the series enabled Australians to feel confident, educated, and prepared should the situation arise when they, or a loved one, considered VAD.
"The podcasts inform listeners that VAD is lawful in their state and equip them with the knowledge to have conversations about VAD when appropriate," Ms Jeanneret said.
"The series aims to promote understanding of some of the key challenges and frontiers for change to VAD systems and how to support someone who may wish to access VAD."
The VAD podcast series is a spin-off of Ms Prince and Ms Jeanneret's bioethics and health law podcast for a mainstream audience called Learn Me Right, which translates evidence-based research in these fields in a digestible format.
Both researchers started the podcast to enable everyone to access resources that could inform and help in decision-making.
"I realised my family was disadvantaged by media outlets' pay walls and did not know where to find any accessible and reliable information on many of the issues researched in ACHLR," Ms Prince said.
"A podcast is the perfect way to share information: short, snappy, interesting, and reliable episodes that anyone with or without research training could listen to."
Similarly, Ms Jeanneret, who is first-in-family to attend university, was motivated to be involved in translating research to share with the wider community.
"I realised how exclusive and inaccessible legal systems and legal knowledge are to many people and Learn Me Right is a way to provide a permanent, available resource on issues where health and law intersect."
The Learn Me Right in Voluntary Assisted Dying podcast series covers VAD law reform, access barriers and facilitators, remuneration and regional access, comparison of state laws, the telehealth prohibition, institutional objection, the Belgian model, doctors' perspectives of VAD, patients' and families' role in regulation, and end-of-life training and is on the ACHLR website and on Apple podcasts.
