Terminally ill patients now allowed to take their own lives with prescription drugs in Hawaii
(Meredith/AP) – Hawaii has become the sixth state, along with Washington D.C., to allow terminally ill patients to obtain life-ending medication.
Under the Our Care, Our Choice Act, adults with less than six months to live can request an aid-in-dying prescription. The law, which went into effect Jan. 1, requires that two health care providers confirm a patient’s diagnosis, prognosis and ability to make decisions about the prescription.
Still, few doctors and pharmacies are willing to prescribe and dispense the life-ending medications.
Hawaii Pacific Health and The Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu said their pharmacies will not fill the prescriptions and hospitalized patients will not be able to take the lethal drugs on their campuses, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported Tuesday.
“There are a number of health care providers, nurses and others who are really uncomfortable about this, so asking anybody to participate as a patient ends their life is a really tough thing,” said Melinda Ashton, chief quality officer for Hawaii Pacific Health, one of the state’s largest health care providers.
The state Department of Health projects that 40 to 70 patients will seek medical aid in dying this year. Care providers and the state Health Department will offer training sessions to medical personnel on how to handle the requests for life-ending medication.