Information for the terminally ill

Two state Senate policy committees approved a bill by Assemblywoman Patty Berg that would require doctors to answer their terminally ill patients' questions about dying.

The bill, which had effectively been stalled by religious and professional groups, gained new momentum when a series of lastminute negotiations prompted the Catholic Church to drop its opposition.

Once Catholic representatives and a group of oncologists were satisfied that the bill was not an endorsement of assisted suicide, Assembly Bill 2747 was approved in both the Senate Health Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"This bill is about information, plain and simple," said Berg, D-Eureka, who has attempted in recent years to enact an Oregon-style Death With Dignity law in California. "This bill does not make anything legal that isn't legal now. But it does say that you can't keep a patient in the dark just because you're uncomfortable talking about dying."

Opponents had been leery of AB 2747, which they feared could be a stalking horse for another attempt at allowing patients to control their own dying, according to a news release from Berg's office. Berg amended the bill to remove mention of the existing medical practice of palliative sedation, in which patients are kept under continual sedation while they die. She also took a number of minor, clarifying amendments designed to make clear that the bill had nothing to do with her previous efforts on Death With Dignity.

In testimony, Berg pointed to a recent study funded by the federal government which found that patients who were told what to expect in their final days fared better during the dying process than those who received no such information. The study said informed patients were less likely to be depressed, more likely to receive hospice care, and their families were better able to deal with their deaths than the uninformed. The study also pointed out that only one in three terminally ill patients was likely to receive thorough information about their condition.

The state Assembly has already approved AB 2747. The bill now heads to a vote of the full Senate.