Exposing Philip Nitschke - A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

Firstly I would like to thank Margaret Tighe and the Right to Life organisation for inviting me to this 2005 Conference.

I am not a public speaker. I am a simple woman that has experienced extraordinary circumstances in the last 8 months. I am here in the capacity to relay my experiences in relation to my father's suicide between 25th September and 14th October, 2004.

My father lived by himself in the Blue Mountains, outside Sydney, moving there after my mother's death from Cancer in 1998. He had retired from his lucrative and rewarding career as a Civil Engineer in 1995. He was a self-funded retiree. He enjoyed regular contact with myself, my four children and his other daughter and her family.

On the 26th August, last year, my sister and myself held a 70th birthday party for my father at her house. My sister had recently had her second child in June 2004 and this celebration was a binding of the year events. My father's brother, his wife and their extended family were invited. A happy gathering of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews.

My father and myself sat out on the deck in my sister's leafy northern Sydney residence reflecting on the day, his 70 years and how good life in Australia was. I left with my children a little time later, giving my father a hug, wishing him a Happy 70th Birthday and driving down the driveway home.

That was the last time I saw my father alive.

I resumed working; my children went onto to their perspective studies and jobs.

On the morning of the 14th October, 6 weeks later, I received a telephone call from my sister advising me that she had not heard from dad in several weeks and was very concerned.

I was not.

As history had dictated that this time of the year is traditionally a difficult time for my father, as he was married on the 12th October and he found the early days of October difficult. To cope my father would take himself into the country looking for links to his heritage, which became a hobby of his. This, not being his only hobby. He also was on the advisory board to renovate the Blackheath Pool in his local suburb. My father had many interests and many family functions that he attended, in his comfortable retirement.

On the morning of the 14th October, my sister was crying and very upset on the phone. So I gave her the go ahead to call the local mountain Police. A step I was reluctant to take, as my sister and I had taken this step before, several years previously at exactly the same time of the year. The Police in that instance were unnecessarily called to my father's house, as he was, yet again, on one of his adventures into country New South Wales.

This morning was different.

We called the Police at 9am. After half an hour, my sister rang the Police again. Again no verification of events at my father's house. Another half an hour passed, and we rang again. The Police continued to decline any information. Only to say that the Police were still at my father's property.

As a nurse, I know and knew that there was something seriously wrong. I rang the Police several times during the course of the morning, to gain some insight into what they had discovered at my fathers house. With no clarification.

I rang my place of work and cancelled the afternoon's shift.

At 12.30pm, my sister rang me and said "Melissa, Dad's dead"

"Melissa, Dad's dead"

To my horror my fears had been realised

I told my sister that I would be at her place within an hour.

I rang the Katoomba Police and spoke with the Police Officer who found my father. He was traumatised.

He told me on the phone that he had never witnessed anything quite like what he had found in my father's bed in his entire Police career. As a humanitarian and a nurse, I began to listen to him recount the events of he and his colleagues finding my fathers body. Or rather particular by the smell. The flies. The blood on the walls. He told me that it looked like a possible suicide. As I listened quietly to this Police officer it occurred to me, that my father's death did not only have a final impact on him, but was going to have a powerful rippling effect on many people.

I drove to my sister's house.

When I walked in the door of my sister's house, the air was tense. My other sister was there. The 14th October, happened to be her birthday. My brother in law was there as well.

I again rang the Police. This time the Hornsby Police, who delivered the news of the discovery of my father's body to my sister's. I asked the Sergeant to come back to the house and explain to me the course of action that we now needed to take. The Sergeant, in his duty, was visibly shaken by having to relay such news to the family. My father's family was in disbelief. Numb. Numb of the news. Rational normal people were making irrational decisions.

That afternoon, I asked my two sons to drive very carefully to their aunt's place. On telling the news of his grandfather's death to my second son, a physically strong young man in his third year of a Cabinetmaking apprenticeship, he collapsed. My sister and myself broke his fall. In telling my eldest son, the anguish and sadness that he showed was beginning to shake the usual rock solid foundation of my personality.

I could not drive home. My eldest son drove me home that night. As we were driving home, I had yet to tell my two youngest daughters of the news of their grandfather's death. Both of my daughters were hysterical and in disbelief. Numb. Not understanding. Incomprehensible. That this larger than life man, their Grandfather, was now no longer with us.

As the days passed the real agony of this story began.

My father's body was taken to Westmead Hospital's Morgue. The examiner there could not identify my father's face. It was unrecognisable. My father's head had exploded within a plastic bag that he had placed over his head, two weeks previously. The remains of my father's face were unrecognisable. The Coroner wanted me to identify his feet or his hand with his wedding ring on it. As the process of identifying my father's body was becoming a crucial factor in burying him, at one point there, several days after the discovery of my father's body, and as next of kin, I was going to have to identify the remains of my father's body.

Remembering that my father was meticulous in keeping records, journals, correspondence and contacts. I drove to his house and found his Dentist contact. This Dentist sent the Coroner an X-ray of my father's teeth, which identified him.

We had my father's funeral on the 22nd October. Only the immediate family knew of my father's suicide. With the exception of my second son, who was not aware of my father's suicide. He was not told of my father's suicide until 4 months later, as I was acutely cautious of his reaction and his subsequent Mental Health.

My father came from a Catholic family.

I was receiving phone calls , on a daily basis, whilst I continued working, from his family expressing to me, that my father was in purgatory for eternity. There was no reassurance that I could deliver to relieve the pain and numbness my father's family was feeling.

My sister was barely functioning. With many phone calls in the months following my father's death from her. At one point, last year, before Christmas, my sister had Suicidal thoughts. As next of kin, I carried on the task of completing paper work. Making Police statements. Phone calls from the Coroner's office onto the findings of the autopsy.

During this period, I discovered files in my father's study.

One file in particular took my immediate notice.

The file was labelled "Exit"

"Exit"

Exit from what?

Exit to where?

As I perused this file, with documentation that goes back 3 years. I realised that my father first made contact with Nitschke through an article in The Bulletin magazine two years ago.

As I read pages and pages of this file. I began, to my horror, to read the documentation sent to my father from the organisation known as Exit International. Which by the way is still up and running on the Internet.

I read about Exit workshops, monthly Deliverance newsletters, (now that's a contradiction in terms), Life memberships, Exit bags and instruction leaflets on how to use these Exit bags (at a cost of $50), Peaceful pills and a fanciful, soon to be released documentary called "Mademoiselle and the Doctor". By coordinating the Exit organisation documentation and my father's journal. It was obvious that my father had indeed attended these Exit workshops.

On further investigation, I contacted Mr. Nitschke via email, to relay my horror story surrounding my father's suicide. His responding email was cautious, orchestrated and restricted.

In his email, he said he had 3,000 members, all of which were healthy and over the age of 70 years old. I put it to Mr. Nitschke in a further email, if he would please kindly explain to me the criteria, of how he determines whom of his members receives the information of his suicide methods and whom does not. He did not respond to this question.

I also asked Mr. Nitschke whether there were counselling services provided by his organisation for the family of loved ones, who had committed suicide with the advice that he had provided to them, in his many workshops here in Australia and in New Zealand.

There were not.

In his response email to me, Mr. Nitschke even entertained the idea if I would have felt differently if my father had taken the "Peaceful Pill."

It was obvious to me that Mr. Nitschke had missed the point.

My father had committed suicide with the information that Mr. Nitschke had provided to him.

Mr. Nitschke did not take and has never taken into account the rippling affect a suicide can have on an entire family.

I have aunts and cousins in disbelief. I have emotionally distraught sisters and daughters. One daughter, who has gone to live with her father in the Hunter Valley. This daughter was so close to her grandfather. He was a role model to her. That she ran to the nearest male family member in her hour of enormous grief. I have not seen my daughter for four months.

On the 1st July this year, my uncle, my father's brother, who had been suffering Bowel Cancer for 5 years, was buried. Everyone in my family knew of his ill health. As distressing as my uncle's passing was, his family was prepared for his death. At my father's funeral, no one was prepared.

No suicide is an isolated problem. Instead the action has the potential to affect hundreds of lives, particularly those who are related to, or who know, the victim.

Mr. Nitschke gained his Medical Degree in 1989. He worked in Darwin, as a Doctor until 1992. In 1992 a whistle blowing incident involving the arrival of a nuclear powered submarine USS Houston into Darwin harbour led to his dismissal from the NT Department of Health. A subsequent inquiry by the Federal Government Senate Privileges Committee led to exoneration and a subsequent offer of re-employment. He declined the reinstatement.

Since 1995, Mr. Nitschke has taken the path to give information on suicide to the residents of the Northern Territory. His first assisted suicide, being Bob Dent in 1995. Since this time Mr. Nitschke has not worked as a Medical Doctor in a Medical setting

A number of theories have been developed to explain the cause of suicide. Psychiatric theories emphasise mental illness; psychological theories emphasise personality and emotional factors; while sociological theories stress the influence of social and cultural pressures on the individual.

Mr. Nitschke has no qualifications in Psychiatry or Psychology. Mr. Nitschke has never worked in the field of Mental Health. His ground roots experience as a Doctor consists of 3 years as a Resident Medical Officer at Darwin Hospital. Mr. Nitschke is currently still registered with the Northern Territory Medical Board.

I put it to Mr. Nitschke that he has no knowledge or education in determining, during his many workshops in Australia and New Zealand which of his members are suffering Depression or have a more severe Mental Illness or who are socially isolative, feeling worthless and unproductive in their well earned retirement years.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics 2000 tell us that we now have the highest single person household ever. Most of these single person households are people living over the age of 70 years old.

A 1997 report by the Australian Bureau of Statistics into Mental Health estimated that only 25% of people believed to be suffering from Depression were actually receiving adequate treatment.

Mr. Nitschke is not an experienced Doctor. He is not God. He is not a Judge. And he is definitely not above the Law.

As Margaret recently told the press, perhaps Mr. Nitschke will think of the beauty of the New Zealand landscape rather than handing out the tools of death, when he moves his organisation to the New Zealand shores.

Thank you all for listening to my story.

By Melissa Frost 1st July, 2005