Colorado Aid-In-Dying Cases Update

Earlier this week I blogged about a recent development with the Oregon statute.  In a recent story in the Colorado newspaper, it's reported that there has been an uptick in requests for aid-in-dying in Colorado. Number of patients who sought medication to end their lives under Colorado’s aid-in-dying law on the rise offers this information:

Last year, 222 people obtained prescriptions for the lethal doses of medication, which they must ingest themselves after getting approval from two physicians who certify that they have a terminal illness and fewer than six months to live. That brings to 777 the five-year total prescriptions since the End-of-Life Options Act was passed, according to a recently completed report on the law by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.  The department tracked how many of those 777 prescriptions were dispensed — 583 — but is not required to follow up with patients’ families or doctors to find how many of those patients actually took the medication.

More data is available in the article, as well as the report from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. The article also discusses a study from a researcher at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.