A recent petition has been filed for Parliament to pass Barbie's Bill through Government. Named after Barbie Duffy, the bill aims to help streamline healthcare directives to avoid instances where an individual receives treatment to which they have not consented.
The spearhead of the campaign to gain petition signatures and have the Barbie Bill pass through the Government is Barbie’s daughter, Louise Duffy.
In Barbie’s circumstances, she had prepared a clear advance directive, giving informed consent to exercise her right to die in the event of a severe and irreversible loss of mental or physical capacity. In October 2021, Barbie suffered a medical incident that left her incapacitated in her ability to speak, read, or write with small movement capability.
However, Barbie received treatment and could only pass away after 58 days of declining food and water.
This event was the catalyst for Louise to create and take on the responsibility of creating a bill to ensure New Zealanders would not face the same circumstances her mother did. There are three things that Louise emphasised Barbie's Bill aims to do.
The first point is to create a national database for people’s healthcare directives, accessible anywhere from any hospital or GP.
Secondly, it is to create specific and detailed standardised care plans. These healthcare plans would clearly outline treatment options for individuals to fill out, deciding which treatment options they would or would not want in the event of specific medical injuries, conditions or otherwise.
Finally, Barbie's Bill suggests that healthcare directives have a legal mandate and legislative backing as they are created based on a patient's informed consent.
“Legislative backing would remove the need, complexity and cost of establishing a power of attorney, who has a limited voice until a doctor invokes them to be able to speak on the patient's behalf anyway,” explained Louise.
Act Party Leader, David Seymour, is actively involved with the Barbie Bill and supports the petition to have it admitted to Parliament. Seymour’s perspective on the bill is clear: legislative backing for an advanced healthcare plan accessible through a database accessible by Doctors nationwide would minimise situations in which individuals would have to suffer through circumstances as Barbie Duffy did.
“One thing you do need is real clarity about the person's wishes, and I think this would help ensure that. We're not doing anything new here. We're putting Parliament's guidance and approval on a process to ensure people's wishes are more likely to be respected,” stated Seymour.
Barbie's Bill aims to eliminate circumstances in which an individual's healthcare directive is not followed. However, such instances involve complexities; how Barbie's Bill would cater to these circumstances, especially with medical professionals in the position to either give or remove specific treatments, is delicate.
“Her [Louise] initial motivation was that doctors should be forced to follow a living well. In any bedside, endured life situation, things are very complex and fast-moving. Your doctors often hold all the cards because they have much higher knowledge than others in the room”.
Previously associated with the End of Life Bill, Seymour clarifies that Barbie's Bill is simply a streamlining of healthcare directives to make the process easier and clearer to manage. Even if withholding treatment or following an individual's healthcare directive may result in their passing, the aim of Barbie's Bill is that these instances are informed clearly by a patient’s consent of what they do or do not want to receive as treatment.
“This is about a passive decision to remove support that would keep someone alive, possibly leading to death. So there's quite a big difference.”
Seymour confirmed that Act Party would support Barbie's Bill and that he would vote for it if the petition succeeded. It is unknown how other members of The Act Party would vote.
More information regarding Barbie's Bill is available under the petition at: https://barbiesbill.nz
