The Pullman Regional Hospital has chosen to fully participate in the state’s new Death with Dignity law.

The hospital’s seven-person Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to participate at its regular meeting on Tuesday, CEO Scott Adams said. With the decision, physicians can write lethal prescriptions for competent and terminally ill patients on the hospital’s premises.

“The hospital’s role is to just to support them in any way they see appropriate,” he said.

The Death with Dignity law, the second of its kind in the nation, was approved by 57.9 percent of Washington state voters in November. Oregon passed a similar law in 1998.

Under the law, the hospital has no right to force individual physicians to write the prescriptions.

“The hospital has no role in anything because it’s a physician-patient arrangement,” Adams said.

Cassie Sauer, spokeswoman with the Washington State Hospital Association, said the WSHA is not tracking how many hospitals in the state are choosing to participate.

She estimated that a third have chosen to fully participate. Another third chose to partly participate, meaning the hospital can provide information on the procedure upon request and must allow physicians to independently participate outside of the hospital premises.

Another third have chosen not to participate, meaning the hospital’s physicians can not conduct the procedure in any way as representatives of the hospital. Sauer said she would not expect any physicians at these hospitals to participate because they would not be protected by the hospital’s liability insurance. This is the stance of all the state’s Catholic hospitals.

The law only allows patients to administer the lethal prescriptions, not the physicians.

Patients requesting the prescriptions must provide an oral request to a physicians, followed by a second request 15 days later.

A written request is then required, which must be observed by two witnesses, not including family members and health care providers. A 48-hour lapse is then required between when the patient signs the request and when the physician writes the prescription.

Patients requesting the prescriptions must be expected to die within the next six months.