Jersey health leaders say evaluating requests to die may prove impossible

As lawmakers on the island of Jersey lean toward legalizing assisted suicide, concerns have been raised about whether the island has the capacity or resources to protect its most vulnerable. 

Some Jersey health leaders say present staff shortages could make it challenging, if not almost impossible, to adequately evaluate the mental capacities of patients requesting assisted death. Some fear that individuals might be prompted or coerced to die by assisted suicide without full comprehension or informed consent.

Key Takeaways:

• The Island of Jersey is considering legalizing assisted suicide, even as leaders raise concerns that there aren't enough medical practitioners able to properly assess the capacity of those requesting assisted death.

• Leaders opposing its legalization are aware that other countries' assisted death "safeguards" eroded over a relatively short period of time.

• Assisted dying laws put vulnerable individuals at risk.

The Details:

Assistant Health Minister Barbara Ward has singled out how crucial protections in the proposed assisted dying bill are being compromised by a clause permitting individuals to grant prior consent to an assisted death — even if they later lose the ability to reaffirm that decision.

Ward is hoping to eradicate this provision, also known as the “waiver of requirement for future capacity,” which allows a person to be killed if he or she becomes unconscious or mentally incapable after initial authorization but before the death is carried out. 

Ward warned:

• The provision could lead to “a practice of non-voluntary euthanasia,” highlighting that under current law, such actions could be considered “manslaughter or murder.”

• The provision was “an advance direction to abandon the right to having capacity and to consent to the assisted death,” which she sees as “a recipe for bias to seep in, and for discrimination, possible negligence, coercion and even criminality to go unchecked.”

In comments quoted by media outlet Island FM, Ward said the UK's Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, currently in Parliament, does not contain an exemption for those who have “lost capacity between giving consent and the time of administration of life-ending drugs.” Ward said: 

“I believe that the Jersey Law should be in line with the English version and require that all patients to fulfil the statutory criteria as in England, ensuring that the person has legal capacity at all stages of the process especially at the point of self-administration or via the administrating practitioner of the drugs due to a person with swallowing difficulties."

Ward voiced reservations about how mental capacity would be assessed in practice in Jersey, particularly given the strain on the island’s healthcare workforce, noting that:

• determining capacity is a complicated task, as a person’s capacity could vary over short timeframes — even within hours

• such evaluations and their outcomes are typically influenced by the assessor’s own experiences and values

MAiD supporters often depict the issue as one of individual freedom, but this idea of “choice” is contingent upon the existence of clear, informed consent.

According to the Bailiwick Express, the current shortage of trained medical professionals make it nearly impossible for Jersey’s healthcare system to properly assess requests for death. Without sufficient personnel to determine patients’ mental state, any safeguards within assisted dying legislation would amount to a pipe dream.

The Big Picture:

Ward is right to be concerned. Her cautionary words mirror the trajectories of other countries that once promised safeguards when they legalized assisted dying.

When Canada authorized its Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) legislation, politicians claimed that only the terminally ill experiencing unbearable suffering would be eligible. Fast forward to 2026, and those “safeguards” have been gradually eroded into oblivion. Canada now allows euthanasia for people with disabilities. Beginning in 2027, individuals with mental illness as their sole condition can qualify for assisted suicide (though some have already been killed for mental illness despite the delay in this provision). 

In the Netherlands, official figures reveal that euthanasia now accounts for around 5% of all deaths. Each “exception” to existing restrictions eventually paved the way to more “exceptions,” leaving safeguards to ultimately become viewed as hindrances. 

If these countries with far more healthcare resources and supervisory mechanisms cannot keep strict boundaries on who can qualify for assisted suicide, one cannot expect Jersey — a small island community already dealing with medical staff shortages — to do better in terms of protecting vulnerable patients. 

The Bottom Line:

As Jersey debates this life-ending law, it is clear that no amount of procedural safeguards can make up for the erroneous belief forming the legislation's backbone, which is that some lives are less worth defending than others.

Instead of legalizing assisted dying in an island community with a faltering health system already experiencing shortages, Jersey should earmark more resources to palliative care, training more health professionals, and supporting families to care for the most vulnerable.