Around 4000 patients dying of cancer have applied for voluntary assisted dying
The first national snapshot shows around 1% of deaths overall in Australia are now through VAD.
Almost 2500 terminally ill Australians have chosen to end their lives using voluntary assisted dying in the five years since the scheme’s introduction, a report shows.
The State of VAD report, released by Go Gentle Australia last month, provides the first national picture of the impact of the assisted dying laws, five years after Victoria became the first state to make VAD available.
So far some 5338 Australians have applied for VAD, and 2467 have died using a VAD substance.
VAD applicants were aged 73 on average but nearly three-quarters of those deemed eligible for VAD had a primary cancer diagnosis.
