Inappropriate attitudes and unnecessary barriers are making it tough for terminally ill people to access voluntary assisted dying, prompting calls for recently implemented laws to be changed.

Voluntary assisted dying has become legal in six Australian states and the ACT in the past five years and is increasingly accepted by healthcare providers.

But challenges remain, including a lack of awareness the practice is legal and available, complex application processes and uncooperative health care facilities.

Some doctors are forced to travel thousands of kilometres to assess patients.

Broadcaster and Go Gentle Australia founder Andrew Denton says people approaching the end of their lives want and need control over what happens to them and the option to choose not to suffer.

“Control takes away unnecessary anxiety about how hard the end is to be,” he told AAP.

Mr Denton said voluntary assisted dying legislation was intended to provide people with that control but because the issue was so contentious, the laws ended up being conservative and unfit for purpose.

“They’re so conservative that it’s difficult for many people at the end of their life to access them,” he said.

“Too many people get caught in institutions that don’t support voluntary assisted dying and then they fall into very painful situations.

“A lot of people die before they can access voluntary assisted dying.”

Mr Denton attributed the lack of support in some circumstances to states that allowed facilities to conscientiously object to voluntary assisted dying.

“What we’re seeing is terrible stories around Australia and people who are dying, who are being told by the facilities that are treating them … if you’re choosing voluntary assisted dying you’ve got to get out of here,” he said.

“That’s a significant issue, and the fact we continue to hear these stories is very distressing.

“It’s cruel and it’s caused great suffering and it’s really inappropriate.”

Legal prohibitions in Victoria and South Australia also prevent medical practitioners from initiating voluntary assisted dying discussions with patients.

“What this means is, if you’re unaware of voluntary assisted dying, if English is maybe not your first language, if you don’t have higher education, you may not be aware that that’s a choice for you,” Mr Denton said.

“Not surprisingly there’s a lower take-up than in other states where doctors can raise it as part of a conversation around your choices.”

There are also federal laws that criminalise using electronic communications, such as telehealth and the internet, to discuss voluntary assisted dying.

Mr Denton said some doctors were forced to make 3000km round trips to assess dying people wanting to be found eligible for voluntary assisted dying.

“It’s a huge waste of resources, it’s a huge impost on doctors and worse than that, we have cases of people living in remote and rural areas for whom it takes so long for doctors to come and assess them … that they die before they get to exercise their legal right,” he said.

“That’s a clear example of a law that needs to be changed.”

The issues have been the focus of the second trans-Tasman Voluntary Assisted Dying Conference in Brisbane this week.

Victoria was the first state to implement voluntary assisted dying laws in 2019.

Since then, more than 7200 terminally ill people in Australia and New Zealand have sought to access this end-of-life choice and 3242 have died, supported by more than 1200 health professionals.

The typical applicant was a male in their 70s with terminal cancer.

Lifeline 13 11 14

beyondblue 1300 22 4636

This post was originally published on Michael West.