Mercy Health is committed to excellent end-of-life care and our approach is in accordance with the Hippocratic tradition of medicine: When our patients are dying, we help them prepare to die in comfort and with dignity.
We aim to do this through the provision of excellent palliative care. Our staff have always had open conversations about end-of-life care with clients and their families. That will not change.
We do not support Voluntary Assisted Dying (VAD) and our services will neither provide nor facilitate it.
The majority of health services in Victoria, including many public hospitals and health services will not be providing a coordinating service for VAD. This includes services like Mercy Health who have opted not to provide the service on moral grounds, but equally, many services do not have the appropriate and available people to support the service. This does not mean that individuals will be impeded from accessing services but it does mean that they will need to use the State’s navigator service to access information about VAD.
We remain concerned about the lack of adequate and timely access to palliative care, particularly in rural and regional areas and will continue to advocate for access to excellent palliative care for all Victorians.
