We are very pleased to welcome Audrey Winograd to our team.

​Audrey is a lawyer and hospice-trained medical social worker with experience in neurology, oncology, chronic disease, and end-of-life care. She holds a law degree from Rutgers University, a Masters in Organizational Development from the University of Pennsylvania and a Masters of Social work from the University of Vermont. Audrey brings 40 years of experience in the field of organizational and community work, personal empowerment and patient-centered care. As a medical psycho-therapist she empowers clients to enhance one’s lived experience today, while engaging in shared decision making for tomorrow.

We are pleased to announce that Senate Bill 74 was signed by the Governor today, marking an important milestone for Vermonters who value end-of-life choice. This bill, passed with strong tri-partisan support, updates and improves the state’s Patient Choice at End of Life Law, Act 39. ​

​(April 13, 2022 - Montpelier, VT) Patient Choices Vermont and Compassion & Choices praised the Vermont House of Representatives for their preliminary approval Thursday of Senate Bill 74 to update and improve the state’s 2013 Patient Choice at End of Life Law, Act 39. The Vermont Senate passed the bill on a voice vote on Jan. 25. 
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We are pleased to announce that the Vermont House Committee on Human Services has scheduled a hearing on S.74 on Thursday, March 31 at 9:15 am. The Committee invited Dr. Diana Barnard; Kim Callinan, President of Compassion & Choices, and myself Betsy Walkerman, President of Patient Choices Vermont (PCV) to testify. We look forward to sharing our team's expertise with our legislators. You can listen live on March 31 or replay afterwards on the Vermont House Committee on Human Services YouTube Channel.
See below for how to contact your representatives.

VTDigger Op Ed:

Many thanks to Vermont Digger for publishing our Op Ed Walkerman & Callinan: Empowering patients at the end of life — S.74, co-authored by Betsy Walkerman and Kim Callinan. This article highlights the very personal aspects of end-of-life choice, and makes it clear how the S.74 changes can alleviate suffering.

News from Oregon - End of Residency Requirement:

Like Vermont and all the other states with medical aid in dying laws, Oregon law has required that the patient be a resident of their state. Yesterday that changed. As a result of a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the residency provision, Oregon will no longer require a person to be an Oregon resident in order to qualify for medical aid in dying.
 
PCV will be studying the impact of this development on Act 39’s similar residency requirement.  

Contact your Representatives:
We've set up an easy way for you to contact your representatives in support of S.74. PCV has already provided the basic message (which you can easily edit with your own personal story or comments) at ContactMyPolitician.com. All you need to do is provide your address to see a display of your own specific legislative representatives. Select politicians listed as members of the State House and click Send Message. It's that easy.

Act 39 passed in 2013 largely because of the vast number of supporters like you who contacted your legislators when the bill was coming up for a vote. We need your help to show our legislators that Vermonters still care deeply about this issue. We hope you find it worth your time to invest a few minutes right now to help make end-of-life choice more accessible in Vermont.

Thank you so much!
Betsy Walkerman, President PCV

Over the course of a few days, my mother, PCV co-founder Ginny Walters, said goodbye to family and friends, drifted off to sleep and died peacefully. She was 96.  

Ginny’s extensive computing and organizational skills and her ability to write cogently and clearly were instrumental in launching and sustaining Patient Choices Vermont during the eleven-year legislative campaign from 2002 to 2013. While my father, Dick Walters, was the outspoken face of PCV, Ginny provided the backbone, editing the website, running a meticulous supporter database, coordinating volunteers and editing every piece of writing that went out the door. Even a few days before she died, Ginny was still sending me articles that she thought we could post on the PCV Facebook page. 

Ginny was a physicist, one of the first women in the US to earn her PhD in this demanding science. If you’d like to learn more about her, Click Here for the website her family has created in her memory.

If you knew Ginny or worked on the campaign with her, and have a story to share, please go to the Add Your Story Here page on her website. Then check back to see memories other people have shared.

Ginny requested that if people were so inclined, donations be made in her honor to either Patient Choices Vermont or Planned Parenthood of NE.  

Thanks so much for your participation as we carry forward the work launched by Dick and Ginny Walters.

​Sincerely,
Betsy Walkerman, President

PCV wishes to thank Senator Ruth Hardy for her presentation of the bill on the Senate floor and her deeply knowledgeable responses to questions. We also thank Senator Ginny Lyons and the members of the Health & Welfare Committee for their careful consideration of the bill. Thanks as well to the bill sponsors, Senator Richard McCormack, Senator Ginny Lyons, Senator Alison Clarkson, and Senator Michael Sirotkin.

Special Thanks to Willem Jewett

At the end of December, Former Representative Willem Jewett contacted PCV offering to share his story with the hope that it would help with passage of S.74. Willem Jewett was majority leader in the House of Representatives in 2013 and played a critical role in the passage of Act 39. We were very sad to learn of his rapid decline from cancer. In his last weeks, he made a priority of continuing his advocacy, while he prepared to use medical aid in dying himself. Our deep condolences to his family and friends. 

In early January, we recorded this conversation which was quoted on the Senate floor, and brought the importance of S.74 to a personal level.

​PCV was instrumental in connecting Willem Jewett to reporters at VTDigger, resulting in these two articles:

• Vermont lawmakers are considering changes to the state’s aid-in-dying law. A former colleague, now terminally ill, says they’re necessary.
• ‘Forza’: Willem Jewett, former Vermont House majority leader, remembered as ‘a force’ — in the Statehouse and on the trail

This press blossomed into a number of additional articles in Vermont media and in the national news. ​Thanks so much to all of you who wrote to your senators in support of S.74. Stay tuned for news as we work through the process in the House.

​When Vermont’s medical-aid-in-dying law, Act 39 was created, legislators placed great weight on preventing its improper use. Now, with eight years of experience and zero reports of abuse, it’s time to listen to Vermont's terminally ill people, the ones the law was intended to serve, by making it less onerous for dying people to properly use Act 39.  

Under PCV’s guidance, Senate Bill S.74 was introduced in February 2021 to make three important improvements to the law:

• Adjust the timeline to eliminate the final 48-hour delay. 

“Those 48 hours were a nightmare. Just the sheer emotional toll it took on my mother was so painful to watch.” —Duncan Allen-Burns, son of Dee Allen, who used aid in dying in 2020.

​Duncan was referring to the mandatory 48-hour delay that all patients must endure after all other parts of the rigorous Act 39 approval process have been completed. This delay caused Dee Allen great fear that she would not be able to self-administer the medication by the time the 48 hours had passed.

• Enable people to make their Act 39 requests via telemedicine.

“I could not wait to get through that timeline. Removal of that in-person requirement would be a huge relief.”— Karen Oelschlaeger.

The Act 39 process requires that two separate requests to use Act 39 be made at least 15 days apart — in the physical presence of the doctor. Karen Oelschlaeger was 37 years old and dying from stomach cancer. You can hear the pain and frustration in her voice on her video on PCV’s website as she describes the arduous process of traveling to required appointments.

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• Correct a technical deficiency in the immunity clause of Act 39.

Act 39 currently provides legal immunity only for doctors. Participation by supporting medical personnel and pharmacists would be more consistent and predictable if legal immunity were explicitly spelled out for everyone involved in the process.

The challenge before us now is to guide Senate Bill S.74 through both houses of the Vermont legislature during the 2022 session. We laid the groundwork in 2021.  

Many thanks to all of you who have supported PCV’s work over the years. Thank you to those who send notes of encouragement and share stories. Thank you to those who make gifts in honor of dear friends. Thank you to those who give monthly. Thank you to our major donors who can afford and choose to give $1,000 or more to this important cause.

All donations speak to the strength of our community and commitment to this basic civil right.

Patient Choices Vermont is the only Vermont organization focused on the rights of people who seek medical aid in dying.

• We provide the only aid-in-dying hotline to both doctors and patients in Vermont.
• 1,200+ people consult the PCV website, PatientChoices.org and/or Facebook page every month.  
• 2,000+ people have attended PCV’s public or medical education programs since Act 39 was enacted.
• Thousands of people are comforted by knowing they have end-of-life choice. We know this because at any given time, 5,000 Vermonters are living with a cancer diagnosis, and every year 1,400 people die from cancer in Vermont. 71% of the people who request aid in dying under Act 39 are facing terminal cancer. Most people who die from cancer have had their diagnosis for years. 

The best part of our work is seeing the impact we have at such a meaningful time of life.

“I couldn’t be more behind her decision, and that’s coming from a place of pure love.
We really appreciate the work that you are doing. We’re very thankful our mom was in a state where she got to choose the way she went out.” —Dee Allen’s son, Duncan