Organ donation after voluntary assisted dying (VAD) is increasingly undertaken in jurisdictions where it is legally permissible, including Australia, although previously all reported cases involved intravenous administration of the life-ending substance. A 55-year-old woman in Victoria has become the first known person to have successfully donated organs and tissues after self-administration of an oral substance, despite initial uncertainty about feasibility due to the unpredictable time to death (agonal phase). With Victorian legislation requiring self-administration as the default, this case provides a precedent, opening the possibility of donation for others in this majority VAD cohort where oral administration is obligatory.
Kantianis et al. (Wed,) studied this question.