Victoria scraps ‘gag clause’ banning doctors from raising voluntary assisted dying with patients

Reforms to Victoria’s voluntary assisted dying laws include removing a gag clause banning doctors from raising VAD as an option and there will no longer be a requirement for patients to be Australian citizens. Photograph: MASTER/Getty Images

For Nick Carr, one of the hardest things to witness as a doctor is terminally ill patients in unbearable pain and knowing there is an option to end their suffering – but not being able to speak of it.

“There’s been times where I’ve been sitting there, having to sit on my hands, having to shut my mouth because I want to say to them, ‘Do you know there is the option of voluntary assisted dying?’ and I can’t,” Carr says.