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Amendment allows terminally ill to forgo life support

Doctors may legally remove life-supporting devices from terminally-ill patients who choose to die in a more dignified manner after a legal revision was passed by the legislature yesterday.

The legislation, sponsored by KMT Legislator Chiang Yi-wen (江綺雯), conditionally frees medical professionals from extending the lives of terminally sick patients with life-support devices.

Patients and their family members have said that emergency measures serve only to lengthen the suffering of patients who have no chance of recovery.

"To save dying patients continues to pose a moral dilemma for doctors and patients alike despite the introduction of a natural death law two years ago. The legal revision, I hope, can reduce medical disputes in connection with such predicaments," Chiang said

Under the amendment, doctors may pull the plug after patients or their family members express their intentions in a written statement. The patients must be certified as "terminally ill" by at least two doctors.

Chiang said the amended law can both help save medical resources and ease the pain of terminally ill patients before they die.

"The purpose of medicine is to cure patients, not hurt them," she said. "That being so, their wishes not to suffer further but die in a more dignified manner should be respected."

DPP Legislator Lai Ching-te (賴清德) said because doctors are obligated to do whatever they can to extend the lives of their patients, doctors often see their patients going through needless suffering before their deaths.

TSU Legislator Chien-lin Whei-chun (錢林慧君) said US doctors will consult with terminally ill patients before administering life-saving measures.

She said it is time Taiwan also introduced the practice.
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