Pro-euthanasia doctor admits another reaction to Nigel Brayley’s pledge to kill himself could have prevented his suspension
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 man had made a rational decision.
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.
Under questioning, Nitschke, a director of the euthanasia advocacy group Exit International, conceded the email chain “doesn’t look good”.
“I wish I’d responded differently, hindsight is great,” 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.
When asked what that sentence would be, Nitschke said “I would be asking whether you’re 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.”
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.
When Brayley wrote his final note – which was not seen by Nitschke – he revealed the reason for his suicide was “the ongoing harassment of the WA police, crimes squad and … one particular detective” after an investigation into the death of Brayley’s wife became a murder inquiry.
But the medical board claims Nitschke had a duty to intervene when Brayley told him of his intentions.
Nitschke’s lawyers have maintained that because their client was not Brayley’s doctor and did not counsel him, the suspension was instead driven by the board’s distaste for Nitschke’s views.
Nitschke was forced to defend his expression of interest in Brayley’s last letter and disputed claims that it was dismissive.
“If someone offers you their suicide note and you say ‘no, I’m not interested’ it strikes me as an unreasonable response,” he said. “I wasn’t going to slap him in the face for it. It seemed to me to be a polite thing to do.”
As Nitschke finished his testimony, he again outlined his support for not impeding the right of competent people to take the “lawful” action of “rational suicide.”
“Validating or acknowledging a person’s thinking rather than dismissing them as pathological is rather therapeutic, and beneficial to society.
“It’s not beneficial to society to pathologise large slabs of behaviour,” he told the tribunal.
He said that despite not treating patients in his surgery very often, he still wanted the return of his medical registration.
“I’d been very publicly suspended,” he said.
“I don’t believe that the grounds on which that action was taken were grounds that I would accept. My medical degree is valuable. I’m not about to say I don’t use it so let’s throw it away. I’m proud of the degree and I don’t want to lose it for unclear reasons or reasons I feel are unjust.”
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.
“You’re effectively saying ‘you have medical training therefore you’re doing a medical assessment’,” he said. “It’s just me, who happens to have medical training.
“If a person comes up with some florid psychosis in the street you know this is not a [usual] encounter. If they then say they’re thinking of suiciding there’s alarm bells everywhere.”
He said that would be apparent to anyone, doctor or not.
Summing up, Nitschke’s lawyer, Peter Nugent, said: “There is no nexus between Nitschke’s work in advocacy or his relationship with Brayley and his status as a medical practitioner.”
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 “no weight should be put on those complaints as evidence of anything other than their … dislike of something they saw on the ABC.”
The board will now consider its verdict.