Government ready with draft bill on passive euthanasia, asks for people's views

MUMBAI: After years of debate and legal battles, the Union government has come up with a draft bill on passive euthanasia that gives patients the right to “withhold or withdraw medical treatment to herself or himself" and “allow nature to take its own course."

The Union health ministry last week uploaded the draft, titled Terminally Ill Patients (protection of patients and medical practitioners) Bill, on its website and has invited comments, via email, from people before June 19, 2016.

The bill provides protection to patients and doctors from any liability for withholding or withdrawing medical treatment and states that palliative care (pain management) can continue.

However, the draft has disappointed experts who wanted complete clarity on the concept of a living will.

A living will is defined as “a document in which a person states his or her desire to have or not to have extraordinary life-prolonging measures used when recovery is not possible from his or her terminal condition."

The Union government has come up with a draft bill on passive euthanasia, paragraph 11 of which says that any “advance medical directive (living will) or medical power of attorney executed by the person shall be void and of no effect and shall not be binding on any medical practitioner."

The draft lays down the process for seeking euthanasia, right from the composition of the medical team to moving the high court for permission.

In January , the Union government had after years of refusal done a U-turn and stated, during an ongoing case in the Supreme Court, that it was on the verge of framing a legislation permitting passive euthanasia. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for the last week of July .

The draft bill protects medical practitioners from any legal guilt and allows them to offer palliative (pain relief) care.

“Every competent patient, including minors aged above 16 years, has a right to take a decision and express the desire to the medical practitioner attending on her or him," says the draft bill uploaded on the ministry website.