She is part of the chorus of health practitioners who want video conferencing, or Telehealth, to be part of the process of voluntary assisted dying. But doctors cannot talk to patients about voluntary assisted dying by any electronic means under threat of a $300,000 fine, thanks to a 20-year-old law criminalising the encouragement of suicide in online chat rooms. “We’re not allowed to fax, we’re not allowed to email, we’re not allowed to do e-scripts,” Dr Czerwinski said. It’s a routine request, but can take days because the communications ban encapsulates all voluntary assisted dying prescriptions, which must be mailed or delivered by hand. “By the time that I was having to administer (the patient’s medication), they were incredibly dehydrated, very difficult to get a line in,” Dr Czerwinski said.