Physicians urged to honor Death With Dignity Act

A Washington nonprofit that advocates for quality end-of-life care and expanded choices is calling upon physicians statewide to honor the wishes of patients who want to use the new Death With Dignity Act.

The act that went into effect March 5 allows competent adults who are expected to die within six months to request and self-administer a lethal dose of medication prescribed by a willing physician. The law is modeled after Oregon's Death With Dignity Act.

Compassion and Choices of Washington knows only a handful of doctors in the state who will perform the service, and they say there are none in the Mid-Columbia area.

"The law is not meaningful if patients do not have the physician support," said Steve Hopcraft, a spokesman for the Seattle-based organization that helps connect patients to doctors who participate in Death With Dignity.

The organization distributed a letter signed by six physicians Friday to all doctors in the state who have practices treating patients who might be terminal or deal with end-of-life decisions and care. The letter urges them to support patients who decide to use Death With Dignity.

The letter, which includes signatures by the former president of the Washington State Medical Association and the medical director of the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance inpatient transplant service, was prompted by the death of a Benton City man who was unable to access the act in the Mid-Columbia area.

Stephen Wallace's last wish was to take the life-ending medication. But his doctors would not participate in Death With Dignity, and hospitals, legislators, the state Department of Health and Compassion and Choices didn't know where to send him.

"We were unable to find a local physician," said Tricia Wallace Crnkovich, of Kennewick, Stephen Wallace's daughter. "We felt the medical community let my father down."

Compassion and Choices urges physicians statewide who are willing to participate in the act to contact the organization so patients struggling to access the service can be referred.

The nonprofit also is encouraging the state medical association and county medical societies to use Compassion and Choices to help provide education about the act.

"There's clearly much work to be done," said Dr. Tom Preston, Compassion and Choices' medical director.