Oregon Hospital Lets Only Doctors Help Suicides

New guidelines at Salem Hospital allow doctors to assist in the deaths of their patients, but nurses, pharmacists and other hospital employees cannot aid in the suicides.

A carefully worded policy approved by the hospital’s board of trustees ends a moratorium placed on assisted suicide by hospital administrator Dennis Noonan. He took the action after voters approved Oregon’s law last fall.

The law, the first in the nation, allows a doctor to prescribe a lethal dose of medication to hasten the death of a terminally ill patient. It sets up several safeguards to make sure the patient is sane, has a terminal diagnosis and is not forced to ingest the lethal medication.

Under Salem Hospital’s policy, approved unanimously earlier this month, hospital employees are prohibited from assisting in the suicide.

The doctor must be present when the patient ingests the lethal drugs and remain until consciousness is lost. The process must be closely documented.

“This is a physician-patient decision and not a hospital-patient decision,” said Sue Miller, chairwoman of the hospital’s board. “It’s allowed under certain circumstances so we don’t flatly prohibit it. The hospital will not get involved in it in any way.”

No patients are known to have carried out assisted suicide yet. Several have expressed interest in doing so, but died of natural causes before ending their lives.

Under the law, a 15-day waiting period is required between the time a patient requests the medication and actually takes it.

At least one other local hospital, Santiam Memorial Hospital in Stayton, placed a moratorium on assisted suicide after the election.

Jeff Davis, administrator of Marion County Health Department, called the hospital’s policy understandable. But he worried that some of the conditions, particularly one that prevents doctors from obtaining a lethal prescription at the hospital’s pharmacy, might restrict the practice.

“If in fact you can’t bring medication in, then I don’t know how you carry it out,” Davis said.

The hospital’s policy is not intended to block doctors from bringing in a lethal dose of medication, Miller said. She said procedures must be followed to bring outside prescriptions into the hospital.