California's Right To End Life Invoked BY 111 Terminally Ill Patients In 6 Months, Report Says

A total of 111 people took their lives in the six months since the End of Life Option Act was introduced in California, according to a report by California Department of Public Health.

The law went into effect in the state in 2016 and allows terminally ill people with less than six months to live to request life-ending drugs from their doctors. According to officials of the California Department of Public Health, 173 unique physicians prescribed aid-in-dying drugs to 191 individuals. Of these, 111 people used the medication to end their lives; 21 died without ingesting the drugs; in 59 cases, there were no reported outcomes by the end of the year.

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Among those who took the doctor’s aid, the largest number (65 percent) had malignant cancer as the underlying terminal disease. Neuromuscular disorders such as ALS3 and Parkinson’s accounted for the second largest underlying illness grouping, totaling 18 percent. According to the report, most of the individuals who opted for the act had some form of health insurance. Medicare or Medi-Cal or both covered 56.8 percent of individuals, followed by public or private insurance at 30.6 percent. Ten individuals, or 9 percent, had undetermined health insurance coverage.

Among the 111, the largest percentage was of people from the age group of 70-79 years. Hundred and two were white and 54.1 percent were females. Ninety-three percent of the patients had enrolled for end of life care.

California is one of the six states in the country where medical aid in dying is authorized. Colorado, Montana, Oregon, Vermont and Washington, D.C., are the other states. They constitute 18 percent of the nation's population.

A report by the Los Angeles Times compared statistics between Oregon and California and stated the rate of lethal prescription deaths was 37 per 10,000 total deaths in Oregon while it was only 6 per 10,000 in the latter. Experts suggest low usage in California isn’t surprising since patients and physicians are still learning about the new law, the report stated. In the first year of the law in Oregon, there were only 15 physician-assisted deaths, though that number had grown to 133 in 2016.

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LA Times quoted Matt Whitaker of Compassion & Choices, an advocacy group that fought for the law’s passage, as saying: “The state’s data show that even during the early months of the law’s implementation, the law was working well and terminally ill Californians were able to take comfort in knowing that they had this option to peacefully end intolerable suffering,”.

For those opting to terminate their life, the act mandates they must get two different doctors to confirm they have six months or less to live, and the mental capacity to understand and make their own decision. The law is not specific about which aid-in-dying drugs can be prescribed. In addition, facilities like hospitals and nursing homes can decide not to participate in the process and can prohibit employees and contractors from doing so as well.