Philip Haig Nitschke (; born 8 August 1947) is an Australian humanist, author, former physician, and founder and director of the pro-euthanasia group Exit International. He campaigned successfully to have a legal euthanasia law passed in Australia's Northern Territory and assisted four people in ending their lives before the law was overturned by the Government of Australia. Nitschke was the first doctor in the world to administer a legal, voluntary, lethal injection, after which the patient activated the syringe using a computer.
In 2015, the Medical Board of Australia (AHPRA) permanently suspended Nitschke's registration as a doctor due to "professional misconduct and unprofessional conduct". Nitschke has been referred to in the media as "Dr Death". Former UN medical director Michael Irwin branded him “totally irresponsible” for telling people how to obtain drugs that could help them end their own lives, and relatives of people who took their lives after contact with Exit International have denounced Nitschke, saying their loved ones were not in a rational state of mind at the time.
Early life and education Nitschke was born in 1947 in Ardrossan, South Australia, the son of school teachers Harold and Gweneth (Gwen) Nitschke.
As described in the partly autobiographical book Killing Me Softly, Nitschke, at age 16, was molested by a couple with whom he was boarding. He took revenge by cutting their dog's throat with a knife.
Nitschke studied physics at the University of Adelaide,'Dr. Death' Breaks Down Techniques for Suicide gaining a PhD from Flinders University in laser physics in 1972.Dr Philip Nitschke, voluntary euthanasia's most vocal supporter, still fighting old foes
Rejecting a career in the sciences, he instead travelled to the Northern Territory to take up work with the Aboriginal land rights activist Vincent Lingiari and the Gurindji at Wave Hill. After the hand-back of land by the prime minister Gough Whitlam, Nitschke became a Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife ranger. However, after badly injuring his subtalar joint, which effectively finished his career as a ranger, he began studying for a medical degree. In addition to having long been interested in studying medicine, he has suffered from hypochondria most of his adult life and futilely hoped with his medical studies to educate himself out of the problem.
Nitschke graduated from the University of Sydney Medical School in 1989.
Early career After graduating Nitschke worked as an intern at Royal Darwin Hospital, and then as an after-hours general practitioner. When the Northern Territory branch of the Australian Medical Association publicly opposed the proposed Northern Territory legislation to provide for legal euthanasia, Nitschke and a small group of dissenting Territory doctors published a contrary opinion in the NT News under the banner Doctors for change. This put him in a position of an informal spokesperson for the proposed legislation. After the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act (ROTI Act) came into force on 1 July 1996, Nitschke assisted four terminally ill people to end their lives using the Deliverance Machine he developed. This practice was ceased when the ROTI Act was effectively nullified by the Australian Parliament's Euthanasia Laws Act 1997.
In the 1996 Australian federal election, Nitschke ran in the seat of the Northern Territory for the Australian Greens but was unsuccessful.
After the ROTI Act was nullified, Nitschke began providing advice to others about how they can end their lives, leading to the formation of Exit International in 1997. A notable case of Nitschke's was that of Nancy Crick, aged 69. On 22 May 2002, Crick, in the presence of over 20 friends and family (but not Nitschke), took a lethal dose of barbiturates, went quickly to sleep and died within 20 minutes. Nitschke had encouraged Crick to enter palliative care, which she did for a number of days before returning home again. She had undergone multiple surgeries to treat bowel cancer and was left with multiple dense and inoperable bowel adhesions that left her in constant pain and frequently in the toilet with diarrhoea. She was not, however, terminally ill at the time of her death. Nitschke said the scar tissue from previous cancer surgery had caused her suffering. "She didn't actually want to die when she had cancer. She wanted to die after she had cancer treatment," he said.
Nitschke made headlines in New Zealand when he announced plans to accompany eight New Zealanders to Mexico where the drug Nembutal, capable of producing a fatal overdose, can be purchased legally. He also made headlines, even angering some fellow right-to-die advocates, when he presented his plan to launch a "death ship" that would have allowed him to circumvent local laws by euthanising people from around the world in international waters.
In the 2007 Australian federal election, Nitschke ran against the Australian politician Kevin Andrews in the Victorian seat of Menzies but was unsuccessful.
In 2009, Nitschke helped to promote Dignified Departure, a 13-hour, pay-television program on doctor-assisted suicide in Hong Kong and mainland China. The program aired in October in China on the Family Health channel, run by the official China National Radio.
Organisations opposed to euthanasia, as well as some supporting euthanasia, are critical of Nitschke and his methods.
Suspension of medical licence In February 2014 Nitschke was approached after a workshop by Nigel Brayley, 45. Brayley was facing ongoing questions about the death of his wife, which police were treating as suspected murder. Two other female friends of his had also died, one of whom is still missing. Nitschke recounts that Brayley rebuffed suggestions to seek counselling and had already obtained the drug Nembutal. Brayley then committed suicide in May 2014. Although Nitschke was unaware of the investigation at the time, he now believes that Brayley, whom he described as a "serial killer", had made a rational decision to commit suicide rather than face long imprisonment. Nitschke stated that he does not believe he could have changed Brayley's mind, that Brayley was not his patient, that Brayley was not depressed and did not seek or want Nitschke's advice. The Medical Board of Australia (MBA) and Beyondblue said Nitschke had an obligation to refer the man to a psychologist or psychiatrist.
On 23 July 2014, as a consequence of the Brayley case, the MBA voted to use emergency powers to suspend his practitioner's licence immediately, on the grounds that he presented "a serious risk to public health and safety". Nitschke said he would appeal the suspension, which he claimed was politically motivated, and that the Board "made it clear that what they really object to is the way I think. It's ideas they object to — namely, my belief that people should have a right to suicide, is something they think is contrary to medical practice." The MBA later clarified that the suspension was an interim measure pending the outcome of an inquiry. Nitschke said the suspension will not affect his work for Exit International and that he had not practised medicine for years.
Beyondblue's chairman Jeff Kennett, a supporter of euthanasia for the terminally ill, said Nitschke had damaged the cause of euthanasia for the terminally ill, and welcomed the decision to suspend Nitschke. Kennett said "We cannot allow the debate to start that it's alright for a 16-year-old, or a 45-year-old, simply because they're having an off day, to attempt to take their own life. It is not acceptable. I think [Nitschke] has put his cause back, that is for a very properly defined legislative framework where people who are terminally ill, under certain circumstances when all their dignity has left them, have the right to exit this world, I think he's done that a lot of damage."
Nitschke appealed to an MBA tribunal in Darwin to have his July 2014 suspension from practising medicine overturned. In late 2014 the appeal was rejected on the grounds that, although it was accepted that Brayley was not Nitschke's patient, the controversial concept of rational suicide was inconsistent with the medical profession's code of conduct and that, as a medical practitioner providing advice on suicide, he posed a serious risk because people may elect to commit suicide believing it to be a pathway sanctioned by a medical practitioner and perhaps the medical profession generally. Nitschke then appealed the tribunal's decision to the Darwin Supreme Court.
On 6 July 2015 the Northern Territory supreme court upheld Nitschke's appeal, finding the emergency suspension of his licence by the MBA should not have been upheld by a review tribunal. Justice Hiley's ruling said that the tribunal and board had misconstrued the doctors’ code of conduct, which requires them to "protect and promote the health of individuals", as extending to all doctors and all individuals. "A doctor would constantly need to fear that any interaction with any other individual or community, including an individual who is not and never has been his or her patient, may be in breach of the (code), even if the doctor did nothing in circumstances where there was no other obligation to do something," he said. Nitschke said the MBA's erroneous interpretation was "ludicrous" and flew in the face of common law. Nitschke's lawyer will apply for costs of approximately AU$300,000, which were paid using donations, including $20,000 from Swiss euthanasia organisation Dignitas.
In October 2015 the MBA lifted Nitschke's suspension but drew up a list of 25 conditions under which Nitschke could continue to practise. These conditions included prohibitions on giving advice or information to the public or patients about euthanasia, or Nembutal, or suicide, and forcing him to rescind his endorsement of and involvement with the 'Peaceful Pill' handbook and related videos. In response Nitschke, calling the MBA's actions "a heavy-handed and clumsy attempt to restrict the free flow of information on end-of-life choice", surveyed more than 1,000 members of his advocacy group, Exit International, and received strong support for ending his medical registration. As a consequence of the MBA restrictions and the results of the member survey, Nitschke publicly burned his medical practising certificate and announced the end of his medical career, vowing to continue to promote euthanasia.
Nitschke stated that he will remain a doctor and will legitimately use the title "doctor" (he has a PhD), and will continue to see patients and Exit members in clinics that he runs in Australia and other countries. In the wake of this incident, Nitschke and his partner, Fiona Stewart, decided in 2015 to relocate to the more liberal politico-legal environment of Holland.
Conflict with police Nitschke states that he and his group are regularly subject to harassment by authorities, including detention and questioning at international airports, and raids on homes and the premises of Exit International.
On 2 May 2009 Nitschke was detained for nine hours by British Immigration officials at Heathrow Airport after arriving for a visit to the UK to lecture on voluntary euthanasia and end-of-life choices. Nitschke said it was a matter of free speech and that his detention said something about changes to British society which were "quite troubling". Nitschke was told that he and his wife, author Fiona Stewart, were detained because the workshops may contravene British law. However, although assisting someone to commit suicide in the UK was illegal, the law did not apply to a person lecturing on the concept of euthanasia, and Nitschke was allowed to enter. Dame Joan Bakewell, the British government's "Voice of Older People", said that the current British law on assisted suicide was "a mess" and that Nitschke should have been made more welcome in the UK.