Resources

• Staff car park access form
• Swipe card access form

• FAQs
• How to guide
• Resuscitation Plan Flowchart
• Resuscitation Plan
• Powerpoint Guide to the changes
• Resuscitation Plan Policy and Protocol

Important changes to Medical Certificate Cause of Death notification submission

The Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages Victoria (BDM) is moving to a new online system. Registry Information Online (RIO) will replace Medical Practitioner’s Online and will go live on 19 February 2019. This means that you will only be able to submit a medical certificate cause of death or medical certificate cause of perinatal death notification after registering an account with RIO.

All medical practitioners are required to register as an individual with RIO. This will ensure BDM has your current details, and you will be able to submit medical certificate cause of death notifications quickly and efficiently.

To minimise the risk of delays or other unnecessary disruptions in issuing a death certificate, all medical practitioners working at Cabrini must complete their registration by 5 pm 7 February 2019.

>> Registrations can be completed here: https://www.bdm.vic.gov.au/Register

To register you will need:

• Your medical practitioner Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) accreditation number
• A government-issued identity document, e.g. drivers’ licence or passport.

From 19 June 2019, voluntary assisted dying is legal in Victoria. The Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 (Vic) allows certain people in the late stages of advanced disease to take a substance prescribed by a doctor that will end their life, at a time and place of their choosing.

There are strict eligibility requirements and not all patients will be able to access voluntary assisted dying.

Cabrini’s position is that doctors and other healthcare practitioners should not intentionally cause the death of a person in their care, and should not assist a person in taking their own life. Cabrini will not be participating in voluntary assisted dying. We welcome all to our healthcare service, whatever their views and beliefs. We will support our staff in being able to respond in a sensitive and open way to any person’s desire to discuss or access voluntary assisted dying.

We will never abandon our patients or residents and we will continue to accompany them, if they choose, from diagnosis until their death.

Resources:

• End of Life Care Guidelines 
• End of life choices at Cabrini (Brochure)
• Compassionate Conversations information sheet 
• FAQS

The Ethics of Consent

Our session was joined by ethicist Dr Bernadette Tobin, Director of the Plunkett Centre for Ethics at The Australian Catholic University & St Vincent’s Health Australia; Dr Fergus Kerr, Group Director Medical Services and Clinical Governance at Cabrini; and Dr Raymond Yap, Consultant Colorectal and General Surgeon at Cabrini.

• Apart from it being required legally, why does consent matter?
• What constitutes ‘adequately informed’ consent?
• What is the significance of hospital documentation?
• Challenges: A patient withdraws consent after being given diazepam as a pre-anaesthetic medication? The surgeon changes the procedure intra-operatively.