There's a story going around about a Canadian woman who was, and I quote, "euthanized against her will."
Evidently, you can just murder someone up there, change the language, wrap it up in a pretty bow, and call it acceptable now.
In case you aren't familiar, Canada has a federal program called Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). Here's more about it:
Medical assistance in dying (MAID) is a process that allows someone who is found eligible to be able to receive assistance from a medical practitioner in ending their life. The federal Criminal Code of Canada permits this to take place only under very specific circumstances and rules. Anyone requesting this service must meet specific eligibility criteria to receive medical assistance in dying. Any medical practitioner who administers an assisted death to someone must satisfy certain safeguards first.
Only medical practitioners are permitted to conduct assessments and to provide medical assistance in dying. This can be a physician or a nurse practitioner, where provinces and territories allow.
If you don't want to continue living, that's your business. I don't personally agree with it, but I only have to live with myself. What I can't respect, however, is getting the government involved, because then you end up with a lot of slippery slopes and situations that end in this way.
A Canadian woman in her eighties, who we're calling "Mrs. B," had coronary artery bypass graft surgery. There were complications, and her health began to decline. Her elderly husband was caring for her, but it eventually became a struggle, so the woman allegedly told her family to call MAID services.
Her husband called that day. Apparently, the woman spoke with an assessor, and she changed her mind, "citing personal and religious values and beliefs." She said she'd prefer hospice care for the remainder of her life.
The next day, the husband took her to the hospital. Doctors noted that Mrs. B was stable and could return home with palliative care, but that her husband was suffering from caregiver burnout. To give him a break, the palliative care doctor at the hospital recommended inpatient hospice care, but the request was denied for not meeting certain criteria. Potential long-term end of life care was offered instead.
The husband, frustrated, apparently asked for MAID again. A second assessor came in and said that Mrs. B qualified. However, as is protocol, the second assessor had to speak with the first assessor to ask why that person didn't approve the service.
According to a report by the Ontario MAID Death Review Committee, "This MAiD practitioner expressed concerns regarding the necessity for 'urgency' and shared belief for the need for more comprehensive evaluation, the seemingly drastic change in perspective of end-of-life goals, and the possibility of coercion or undue influence (i.e., due to caregiver burnout)."
The initial assessor wanted to meet Mrs. B in person the next day to get a better idea of what was going on and whether or not she changed her mind, but was denied, with assessor number two claiming the matter was too urgent. A third assessor came in, agreed with the second one, and Mrs. B was killed that evening.
The Ontario MAID Death Review Committee found that "the short timeline did not allow all aspects of Mrs. B’s social and end-of-life circumstances and care needs to be explored. Members indicated areas that required further opportunity to explore or navigate as: the impact of being denied hospice care, additional care options, caregiver burden, consistency of the MAiD request, and divergent MAiD practitioner perspectives."
The board also expressed concern about "external coercion," because there was little to no documentation that Mrs. B had changed her mind, and, again, the initial assessor was not allowed access to the woman to ask.
Dr. Ramona Coelho, a physician on the committee who is critical of MAID and assisted suicide in general, concluded that "the focus should have been on ensuring adequate palliative care and support for Mrs. B and her spouse," instead of, well, murdering her for the sake of everyone else's convenience.
"Hospice and palliative care teams should have been urgently re-engaged, given the severity of the situation," she continued. "Additionally, the MAID provider expedited the process despite the first assessor's and Mrs. B's concerns without fully considering the impact of her spouse's burnout."
I will note that Coelho doesn't just take this stance from a medical standpoint. She took care of her own father, who suffered from dementia, until his death last year. As someone who was a caregiver for many years myself and suffered from major burnout, I think that makes her opinion and role even more important. I can't speak for Dr. Coelho, but I can say that even on my mother's most extreme days — the days where I literally thought I would be the one to die if I had to do it for another hour — I never once thought that ending her life was the answer. And neither did she.
I contemplated running away or something like that more times than I could count, but playing God, or worse, wishing my government could play God on my behalf never even crossed my mind.
Canada legalized assisted dying in 2016, initially limited to terminally ill adults whose deaths were reasonably foreseeable.
But the law has since expanded to include people with chronic illness, disability, and soon — pending a parliamentary review — those with certain mental health conditions.
Dementia cases remain controversial because of questions about capacity and consent.
Mrs. B's case wasn't the only one in the committee's report that was sketchy. There were other patients who were approved despite not actually having the capacity to do so, including a woman who allegedly singed off on her own death by squeezing someone's hand, and man with Alzheimer's who was hospitalized with delirium but was deemed "capable" for a very brief moment while he was made to sign the paperwork.
All I have to say is that I've heard a lot of Canadians calling Donald Trump "Hitler" over the last year, but it if I recall correctly, killing people who are old or sick against their will was a Nazi Germany thing.
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