End-of-life education, legislation gets backing of Ohio Nurses Association

Anne Saker | Cincinnati Enquirer

For the first time, an Ohio organization of medical professionals has decided to support letting terminal patients in the state get medical help in dying.

The Ohio Nurses Association, the largest nurses’ union in the state with 11,000 members, convened in Cincinnati last month and approved sweeping language calling for legislation and more education for nurses to help patients at life’s end.

ONA President Deborah Arms said the proposal recommends “educating the public about medical aid in dying, supporting legislation to protect the rights of dying patients to control the circumstances and conditions of their death and providing resources and education to nurses about the nurse’s role in caring for patients regarding MAID or any form of treatment limitation.”

“These recommendations are an extension of what nurses are ethically obligated to do, which is to protect and advocate for the rights, needs and wants of their patients.”

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Oregon became the first state to enact a medically assisted suicide law in 1997. The movement has spread to California, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Montana, Maine, New Jersey, Vermont and Washington state.

The laws require at least two doctors certify a patient has six months or less to live and is mentally competent to make the decision. The patient must take the lethal drugs without help.

The ONA statement mirrors the agenda of a Cleveland nonprofit advocacy group, Ohio End of Life Options, which has pushed for the legislation since 2014. No other statewide medical-professional groups have said anything out loud about medical aid in dying.

Ohio End of Life Options has recruited a volunteer cadre to staff an education table to Ohio medical-group meetings to talk to doctors and nurses about the desire for such relief. Vikki Miller of Milford and her father Don Richardson of Maineville told their story in September about joining the cause after the March death of Betty Richardson, Vikki’s mother and Don’s wife of half a century. In October, they worked at the ONA convention.

Nurses and doctors are ethically prohibited from providing drugs with the purpose of ending life. But in June, the American Nurses Association issued guidance for 1 million nurses in the ten jurisdictions with aid-in-dying options.

“Nurses have an ethical duty to be knowledgeable about this evolving issue and have the right to conscientiously object to being involved in the aid-in-dying process,” the ANA said.

Medical aid in dying “is not equivalent to euthanasia, which occurs when someone other than the patient administers medication with the intention of hastening death,” the national association said. “Euthanasia is illegal in the U.S. and inconsistent with the core commitments of the nursing profession.”

Last year, the only aid-in-dying bill ever proposed in Ohio never got out of committee and has not been offered again.

The public may be leading on this issue. Last year, a survey that Ohio End of Life Options commissioned found 87% of Ohioans believe terminally ill patients “should be allowed to die in as humane and dignified a manner as they see fit.” The support cut across partisan lines with large majorities.

Lisa Vigil Schattinger, executive director of Ohio End of Life Options, also is a nurse. She said she is proud of the ONA's advocacy "for this option that will be so important for the terminally ill in Ohio."

"Since one in five Americans has access to (medical aid in dying), Ohio nurses are getting questions about it and need to be able to fully discuss and advocate for all health care at the end of life."