Six months, 16 deaths under assisted suicide law

Compassion and Choices of Washington issued a report today (see attached) showing 28 people have received medications under the state's assisted suicide law though not every one of them has used them.

According to the report:

"Sixteen terminally ill Washingtonians who received life-ending medications under the Act achieved a peaceful death. Five of those patients did not use the medication, but benefited from the peace of mind and comfort of having the choice should their suffering become unbearable."

The figure of 16 comes from the filing of state Department of Health after death reporting forms.

From the Compassion and Choices report:

"The Act requires that, physicians file an After Death Reporting Form each time they write a prescription for life-ending medication, whether the patient took the medication or not. The Washington Department of Health has reported 16 deaths under the DWD Law. Because most of these patients were C&C clients, we can confirm that some of them died without taking the medication.

Fourteen C&C clients have died using DWD medication with a client support volunteer present. Four died naturally after going through the DWD process and obtaining medications. Our data indicates that approximately 1/3 of those who received the medication died without taking it."