Providing Legal Assisted Dying and Euthanasia Services in a Global Pandemic: Lessons for Ensuring Service Continuity.

Identifying the impacts of COVID-19 on patients' and practitioners' access to legal assisted dying and euthanasia (AD&E) services is vital to informing service continuity in an ongoing pandemic. An anonymous online survey collected qualitative and quantitative data from health practitioners and agencies providing legal AD&E services ( = 89), complemented by semi-structured interviews with 18 survey respondents who volunteered. Following governments' responses to the dynamic pandemic context, rates of AD&E inquiries and requests fluctuated across and within jurisdictions, based on a complex interaction of factors affecting patient access to AD&E agencies and assessors as services were disrupted.

What keeps an island community COVID-19 free in a global pandemic?

The COVID pandemic has offered opportunities for islands and other relatively isolated communities to establish pandemic-protection boundaries. A July 2020 survey of Waiheke Island residents sought views on how the island had remained COVID-19 free, despite proximity to a city of 1.6 million (Auckland, NZ).

Nurses' views on legalising assisted dying in New Zealand: A cross-sectional study.

Aims: This study investigated New Zealand nurses' views on legalising assisted dying across a range of clinical conditions, nurses' willingness to engage in legal assisted dying, potential deterrents and enablers to such engagement, and nurses' perceptions of the proper role of their professional bodies in relation to legalising assisted dying.

Background: A Bill for legalising assisted dying is currently before the New Zealand parliament. Of the 16 jurisdictions where assisted dying has been specifically legislated, only the Canadian federal statute provides nurses with explicit legal protection for their performance of assisted dying-related tasks.

New Zealand doctors' and nurses' views on legalising assisted dying in New Zealand.

Background: Assisted dying (AD) has been legalised by statute or court decisions in at least 15 jurisdictions internationally. Nonetheless, only three medical professional bodies (and none in nursing) across those jurisdictions have proactively developed authorised policy, practice standards, guidelines or protocols, or other professional supports for health practitioners who may legally participate in AD services, and the majority internationally remain formally opposed to AD. There is a perceived likelihood that AD may be legalised in New Zealand soon.