A disabled woman starving herself to death is refusing offers of help.
Margaret Page, 60, who suffered a cerebral haemorrhage 20 years ago and has been living in a Wellington care home since 2006, has not eaten for 11 days and has drunk only a small amount of water.
Yesterday she refused attempts by health authorities to make her more comfortable with the offer of a pressure release mattress, The Dominion Post reported.
While she cannot speak well, she has clearly indicated that she no longer wanted to live.
Three psychiatric assessments have found she is lucid and cannot be forcibly treated.
The chief executive of her care home, St John of God, Ralph La Salle, said the home had done everything in its power to convince Mrs Page to eat but it was legally restricted by her legal right to choose to die.
Medical Association ethics committee chairwoman Tricia Briscoe said Mrs Page's actions were beyond doctors' responsibilities.
"If the patient has all her marbles, then they have the right to choose what they wish to do in terms of treatment," she told the New Zealand Herald.
Food and water did not count as treatment and were outside a doctor's scope. A doctor was there to alleviate a patient's suffering, not to ward off death, she said.
Health law expert Jonathan Coates said the Bill of Rights Act and common law were clear about a competent patient's right to refuse treatment, including food and water.
They had that right, even if their family, doctors and health professionals did not like it, he said.
Meanwhile, Family Life International said it was appalled at the apparent lack of action being taken to save Mrs Page.
It appeared that she may be suffering from depression, said spokeswoman Brendan Malone.
"We know from reliable research that, in the majority of cases, once the psychological needs of a patient are attended to, the desire to take their own life vanishes."
The group was also concerned about the fact that pro-euthanasia groups were "displaying an apparent willingness to stand by and watch Margaret Page die a horrible death, rather than encouraging or supporting any action to save her from such a fate".
Perth man Christian Rossiter last year at Western Australia's Supreme Court, winning a decision that backed his hunger strike. Mr Rossiter, a quadriplegic, died in September amid wide publicity.
His lawyer John Hammond said Mrs Page could take "a great deal of confidence" from the case, he told the Dominion Post.
