‘It’s too late’: Patients are dying in agony due to limits on VAD

August 2, 2026 — 5:00am

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Dr Deb Ibbotson is one of Australia’s foremost advocates for Voluntary Assisted Dying to be available by telehealth. Her practice is in Emu Park in central Queensland.

Fitz: Thank you for your time, Doctor. I want to get to the events of this week, where telehealth and Voluntary Assisted Dying are suddenly on the agenda, but can we go first to your medical background?

DI: I’m originally from South Africa, and have been a GP for nearly three decades. As a doctor, you deal with looming death every day of your professional life. Shortly after arriving in Australia, I got very involved in providing palliative care for my patients.

Fitz: When did you get involved with VAD and were you an activist for it from the beginning?

DI: Not an active activist. But when I heard that VAD was going to be legalised in Australia, I immediately went to the first meeting held in Rockhampton to find out about it, and quickly signed up to do the study required to administer VAD. As a doctor, we so often have families and patients just looking at us and going, “How much longer is this going to take?” The family are exhausted. Not eating. Not sleeping. Despite wonderful palliative care helping to ease their passage, it can be excruciating for them to watch their loved one lie there for days on end, waiting to die with loss of dignity and sometimes making gurgling noises.

Fitz: And can have lasting impact on those left behind?

DI: I have found that family members certainly suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder after witnessing their loved one going through a prolonged dying process. I am passionate about VAD because I believe that every person deserves the right to die with dignity, quickly and as peacefully as possible if they so wish. In my experience families are left with much better memories of their loved ones passing with VAD.

Fitz: Was it challenging to actually do your first VAD?

DI: The first case I did, this lady’s best friend was there. I was nervous, of course, but all went well. And literally, the moment she passed, her best friend just turned around and said, “Oh my god, I so wish my father could have gone like that.” And I’ve been doing them ever since. Australia’s had 7000 VADs in the last seven years since it’s been legal.

Fitz: You also ran a case that garnered quite a lot of public attention.

DI: Patrick Hammer was from here at Emu Park and had leukemia [and end-stage liver disease]. He was 38 years old – a loving husband and father of two – and was so........

© The Sydney Morning Herald