An important part of the role of the SCENZ group is to maintain lists of medical and nurse practitioners and psychiatrists.
The SCENZ group oversee assisted dying service lists for:
- replacement attending medical practitioners (where a person seeks the name of a practitioner to provide the service for them. This practitioner will support someone who is terminally ill to make an application for assisted dying, and undertake a first assessment)
- independent medical practitioners (to undertake the second independent assessment)
- psychiatrists (required if one or both of the initial assessments was unable to determine that the person is competent to make a decision).
The SCENZ group will also hold a list of willing nurse practitioners. Nurse practitioners can be involved in the planning of assisted dying with the person and their whānau, and can be with the person to administer medicines or supervise self -administration if that is what the person chooses.
More information about these roles can be found in the Providing Assisted Dying Services information sheet.
If a person requests assisted dying from a medical practitioner who does not provide assisted dying services due to a conscientious objection, the medical practitioner is legally required to inform the person of their objection and tell the person they have the right to ask the SCENZ group for the name and contact details of a medical practitioner who is willing to participate in assisted dying.
If an applicant’s doctor does not provide assisted dying services, or they do not feel comfortable discussing this with them, applicants can contact the SCENZ Group via the Assisted Dying team at Te Whatu Ora for help to find a doctor on the SCENZ list who can assist them. The clinical advisors will work and coordinate with the SCENZ Group for all requests for practitioners who deliver parts of the assisted dying services.
A person will also be able to contact the SCENZ group for help to find a medical practitioner through the Te Whatu Ora Clinical Team, if they do not want to speak to their own medical practitioner about assisted dying.
Medical and nurse practitioners who wish to be on the SCENZ lists can register their interest when signing up for the IT system for the assisted dying service. If you need information about how to register in the IT platform, please email [email protected].
The SCENZ lists and information held will be secure. The lists will be drawn on by the SCENZ group, who will work with the Clinical Advisor team at Te Whatu Ora, to connect eligible people with practitioners as required.
There will be ongoing engagement with Māori health providers, to ensure Māori practitioners who may wish to provide assisted dying services are aware of the SCENZ list registration processes.