Our Young Ambassadors continue to amaze us. ‘Raise Our Voice’ is an initiative of the Federal Parliament that mobilises young women and gender diverse people through education, campaigns and community to transform policy and politics. ‘Youth Voice’ in Parliament is part of this program and occurred this year from 7-10 October 2024. It involved more than 90 politicians across Australia who dedicated a speaking slot to a 90-second speech written by a young person aged 25 or under from their electorate.

We were so excited and proud to learn that the speech written by one of our Young Ambassadors, Eve Crotty, was chosen to be read out by Dr Monique Ryan, House of Representatives. Eve described her mother’s Voluntary Assisted Dying journey. Congratulations Eve!

After completing Eve’s speech Monique said “I thank Eve so much for her courage and her generosity in sharing her mum’s story. Much does need to be done to improve end-of-life care in this country and I commit to working on this for as long as I remain in this house.”

Eve’s Speech

My Mum passed away in August of 2023 via Voluntary Assisted Dying (abbreviated to VAD). Her death, whilst peaceful, was not without suffering.

Mum suffered from end-stage renal failure and had been on dialysis for three years. Being too weak to get a transplant and, upon coming to accept her fate, she began to look into advanced care planning and what her end of life would look like.

It took nine weeks for approval following her final submission to the Victorian Voluntary Assisted Dying Board. With the current wording of our legislation, Mum wasn’t widely considered eligible to access VAD due to “Is expected to cause death… not exceeding six months”; however, upon ceasing dialysis, she would become eligible. Still, the application process would’ve taken longer than her prognosis.

I encourage our federal representatives to influence their state’s VAD legislation and advocate further expanding and unifying the legislative eligibility criteria.

An expansion toward more inclusive language would allow those in similar circumstances to gain unbiased access to VAD, compos mentis or not. Death and illness do not discriminate.

Unifying eligibility criteria would assist in enabling equal access for all Australians, regardless of location.

Had these changes been in place, my mother could’ve avoided the additional unnecessary suffering and had enabled her to have a less traumatic passing.