Supporting families through end of life

In the News

Recent Events

Our Executive Director was recently featured in two media outlets talking about medical aid in dying. The first was a TV interview on CBS 6 Albany which aired last Friday. The next is an audio documentary, “Aiding the Inevitable” by Benjamin Rappaport, a student at the Craig Newman Graduate School of Journalism. You can listen here. Both of these media opportunities continue to serve as a way to educate New Yorkers about medical aid in dying and we encourage you to share them with your own networks.

End Notes

Updates

Welcoming our Newest Board Member, John Spiro

John Spiro joined the Board in 2026. His commitment to expanding end of life choices grew out of personal family experiences where he saw first hand the complexities of navigating end of life issues, the benefits of autonomy, and the importance of organizations that support families during this process. John is trained as a neuroscientist. He spent several years working in scientific publishing as an scientific editor at Nature Neuroscience and then Nature, and then 19 years in leadership positions at the Simons Foundation, a large private foundation in New York City with a mission to advance the frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences. John worked to help build the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI), which focuses on advancing the basic science of autism and related neurodevelopmental disorders. John earned his undergraduate degree in biology from Haverford College, his PhD from the University of California, San Diego, and he did postdoctoral work at Duke University.

Update on Medical Aid in Dying Implementation

We have been working on hospice policy templates that should be available this week for facilities to edit as they wish that would explain their own policies abut medical aid in dying. They include policies from non-participating to providing most of the services required to complete this option. We will share them in our next newsletter and they will be available on our website. Please feel free to share them with any hospice administrator or employee who is interested. We are also happy to answer any questions or provide additional support as they work to implement medical aid in dying in their facilities.

We now have at least three pharmacies across the state that have agreed to provide the prescriptions for medical aid in dying. These prescriptions are compounded and provided in a powdered form that the patient or caregiver then mixes with a liquid for the patient to drink. If you need assistance picking up the medications, preparing them or paying for them, please reach out to us for assistance.

The Department of Health has issued their proposed regulations on medical aid in dying, attached here. There is currently an open comment period that will end on August 3, two days prior to Implementation Day on August 5th.

Many of you have requested a copy of the updated law with Governor Hochul’s amendments. We are incredibly thankful to David Hoffman, JD and Robert N. Swindler, MA, JD, for putting together two documents that do just that. The first one, linked here, is the original bill language that integrates that governor’s enhanced amendments. The second one, linked here, is redlined to show the changes from the original language.

We continue to speak to patients who are interested in considering medical aid in dying and have already begun connecting them to physicians to pre-plan as much as they can which receiving quality care. We have also been able to connect patients with family members of people who used medical aid in dying in other states, so they can begin to learn what the process was generally like (although it will be slightly different in each state) and ask questions that only family and friends will be able to answer. We are honored to be able to coordinate this part of the process. If you are in need, please reach out to us! If you are a clinician of any sort (doctor, nurse, social worker, chaplain, pharmacist, volunteer, doula, or hospital/hospice system), please complete this survey. The answers to this survey will not be made public but will allow us to reach out to you to offer you the opportunity to connect with patients based on their needs. This survey has informed us already that we have strong interest from all sorts of clinicians in providing this care, including pharmacists, doctors, psychologists and end of life doulas.

Please continue to share the flyer highlighting our partnership with the Academy of Aid-in-Dying Medicine with anyone you think could benefit from resources and education. Together with The Academy, we are your go-to source for all things related to the implementation of excellent aid-in-dying care. Please reach out to us with questions, concerns and needs.

If you learn of trainings in your community, please forward them to us so we can reach out and let them know about the support we can provide. We are thrilled that we have been seeing trainings popping up and we want to support any organization to provide the best quality care possible.

We continue to receive many requests by major media outlets to interview people who are considering this option when it becomes available. This is an important way we can use the media to bring more awareness about this option. If you have been diagnosed with a terminal illness and will likely be eligible to use medical aid in dying in the next 6-12 months, and you’d be willing to talk to the media either in print or on TV, please let me know. I can put you in touch with very sensitive reporters and producers who want to help share your story in a compassionate and dignified manner.