Close friends of an elderly couple who died at a retirement village in Adelaide's eastern suburbs, in a suspected murder-suicide, have told the ABC the husband and wife were devoted to each other as assisted dying laws come back into the spotlight.
Mr Maher said an implementation team charged with setting up the laws meet weekly "just to see if there's any way to bring it [further] forward".
"What the police and Coroner talked about were circumstances where people have a terminal illness and are taking matters into their own hands, choosing to end their own lives and of course being found by family members, ambulance officers, police officers," he said. "The other factor is that at every stage of the way from when you make the request, see your first doctor, see your second doctor, the final request up to when the substance is administered, you have to have the mental capacity to understand the nature of what you're doing," Mr Maher said.
He said medical powers of attorney and advanced care directives cannot be used for voluntary assisted dying.Professor of Geriatric Medicine at Monash University Barbara Workman said mental health issues were prevalent in residential care."A lot of its due to loneliness and a lot of its due to loss," she said.
"Residential care is highly regulated and even though we recognise that staffing is inadequate, there are at least staff there who will see someone every day," she said.
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