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Victoria’s assisted dying deaths have surged by 300 per cent since legalisation, while a disturbing case involving a patient’s partner raises urgent questions about safeguards.

Cases of voluntary assisted dying in Victoria have grown by 300 per cent since VAD became legal there in 2019.  

The annual report of the state’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board for 2025-2026 was released quietly in late September. It shows that 512 people died, compared with 129 in 2019-20.   

The increase from the 2024 financial year to 2025 was 32 per cent, from 389 to 512.  

These startling statistics went almost completely unnoticed in the media — even though the report included a shocking incident with implications for VAD regulation across Australia.  

A Tragic Case Exposes Safeguarding Concerns

A patient was approved for VAD and received the lethal drug in February this year. However, he or she died a natural death in a hospital in April. Two days later, the applicant’s grieving partner took the lethal dose and died.  

The same distressing abuse of the law has already happened twice in Queensland, although one of the two who attempted suicide there was saved. The coroner who reviewed the first of these cases said that there would be “further calamity and heartbreak” for patients and families unless the system for self-administration were reformed. The Victorian incident has confirmed his prediction.  

The Victorian Board said, however, that “this incident [in Victoria] does not alter the Board’s assessment of the safety and integrity of the VAD framework.”  

VAD deaths in 2025-26 accounted for 1.1 per cent of all deaths in Victoria. They have risen significantly since the first full year of operation, in 2019-20, when they accounted for 0.3 per cent.  

From 2019 to 30 June this year, 2,188 people have ended their lives by assisted suicide or euthanasia in Victoria.

Parliament Relaxes Restrictions as Deaths Rise

Last year, the state parliament relaxed some of the safeguards in the 2017 VAD legislation. As of 19 April, doctors, nurses, and psychologists will be able to suggest that patients access VAD. Patients used to need to have a life expectancy of six months, but the timeframe has been extended to 12 months. Patients will also be able to choose whether they prefer euthanasia by a doctor or assisted suicide. Doctors with a conscientious objection will be required to provide information about VAD to their patients.  

“These changes, and the other amendments to the Act will greatly improve the safe and timely provision of VAD to Victorians,” says the report. 

The board also strongly supports VAD by telehealth — which is currently banned and can only be authorised by the Federal Parliament. The ban is “unnecessary and inhumane”, the board says, although it also observes that “access to VAD does not appear to be more difficult for regional Victorians than it is for those living in metropolitan Melbourne”.  

Permitting a choice between self-administration of a lethal drug (assisted suicide) or practitioner-administration (euthanasia) is likely to increase the number of VAD deaths. In other jurisdictions in Australia, between 70 and 90 per cent of people prefer euthanasia. In Canada, nearly everyone chooses euthanasia.  

Even though VAD is strictly regulated, there were 21 cases (2 per cent) in which the deaths were deemed “non-compliant” because of “administrative errors” — which included the suicide death of the applicant’s partner.  

The annual report of the NSW Voluntary Assisted Dying Board for 2025-26 is expected in November.

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Originally published at The Catholic Weekly. Image courtesy of Adobe.