South Australian Consolidated Acts South Australian Consolidated Acts17—The care of people who are dying
(1) A medical
practitioner responsible for the treatment or care of a patient in the
terminal phase of a terminal illness, or a person participating in the
treatment or care of the patient under the medical practitioner's supervision,
incurs no civil or criminal liability by administering medical treatment with
the intention of relieving pain or distress—
(a) with
the consent of the patient or the patient's representative; and
(b) in
good faith and without negligence; and
(c) in
accordance with proper professional standards of palliative care,
even though an incidental effect of the treatment is to hasten the death of
the patient.
(2) A medical
practitioner responsible for the treatment or care of a patient in the
terminal phase of a terminal illness, or a person participating in the
treatment or care of the patient under the medical practitioner's supervision,
is, in the absence of an express direction by the patient or the patient's
representative to the contrary, under no duty to use, or to continue to use,
life sustaining measures in treating the patient if the effect of doing so
would be merely to prolong life in a moribund state without any real prospect
of recovery or in a persistent vegetative state.
(3) For the purposes
of the law of the State—
(a) the
administration of medical treatment for the relief of pain or distress in
accordance with subsection (1) does not constitute an intervening cause 1
of death; and
(b) the
non-application or discontinuance of life sustaining measures in accordance
with subsection (2) does not constitute an intervening cause 1 of death.
Note—
1 A novus actus interveniens ie a cause that
breaks a pre-existing chain of causation.