MAiD
Canadian psychiatrist sounds alarm over Trudeau gov’t plan to expand euthanasia to the mentally ill
From LifeSiteNews
” someone not dying because of their condition, such as a mental disorder alone, seeking death is, by definition, suicidal. “
Dr. Harvey Chochinov, the well known professor of psychiatrisy from the University of Manitoba and the developer of dignity therapy, wrote an article that was published in the National Post on December 30, 2023 titled: Intensive compassionate caring — not MAiD — is the most effective way to address mental illness.
Chochinov writes:
It’s time to put the brakes on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) in Canada for those whose sole underlying medical condition is mental illness.
The federal government has tasked the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying to determine if Canada is ready to extend MAID eligibility, starting in March 2024, to patients with mental illness alone. Despite those convinced it is time, and safe, to launch what amounts to ‘psychiatric euthanasia,’ the special committee must pay attention to a murmur of protest that has grown to a roar: Ottawa, we’ve got a problem.
Current MAID eligibility requires a person have a grievous and irremediable medical condition. Unlike some cancers, and many neurodegenerative disorders, no mental disorder can be described as irremediable. To be sure, there are individuals whose mental affliction won’t improve, despite myriad treatments or psychosocial interventions. But there is currently no way to predict which patients won’t get better.
Studies of prognostic accuracy show psychiatrists are wrong half the time. I have cared for patients struggling with chronic suicidality; patients I worried might one day take their lives. I recall a woman with mind-numbing depression, who teetered precariously between life and death. One day, after years of countless drug trials, hospitalizations, electroconvulsive therapy, and various psychosocial interventions, she arrived for her appointment — three weeks into starting a new antidepressant — with a grin on her face.
‘The door is purple,’ she declared. I told her the door had always been purple, to which she replied, ‘I know, but now I care.’
Before that moment, no one — not me, not her friends or family and not anyone on The Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying, nor any MAID assessor — could have predicted her recovery.
Chochinov then states that intensive, unwavering, compassionate care and caring — not MAID — offers the most effective way to address this kind of suffering.
The other reason not to launch psychiatric euthanasia is our inability to determine suicidality from those requesting MAID whose sole underlying medical condition is mental illness. According to the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention, someone not dying because of their condition, such as a mental disorder alone, seeking death is, by definition, suicidal.
Similarly, the first item listed by the American Association of Suicidology differentiating physician hastened death and suicide is the patient must be dying. That certainly does not characterize patients who are mentally ill.
The euthanasia expansionists told the Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying that “suicidality and having a reason to want to die are not at all the same.” Chochinov responds by stating:
We can say ‘six’ and ‘half-dozen’ are not the same as many times as we like. If we repeat it frequently, consistently and without equivocation, it might even sound convincing, but that doesn’t make it true.
Patients struggling with suicidality often have a reason to want to die, based on, for example, self-loathing, feeling like a burden or becoming worn down pursuing care and support that could sustain them. In those instances, the line between MAID and suicide simply vanishes.
Avoiding discrimination does not mean everyone is treated the same, but rather, that everyone gets equal access to what they need to thrive.
Time and again, committee members have asked witnesses when Canada’s psychiatric euthanasia program can be launched. I would suggest they behave like NASA. When a potentially catastrophic problem is identified before blast-off, space engineers don’t set an arbitrary new launch date, no more so than Health Canada announces a random release date of a new drug discovered to have unacceptable side-effects.
Ottawa, we have a problem.
The federal government would be well advised to scrap this mission. But if it insists on moving forward, launch should proceed only when the problems are solved, and not a moment sooner.
Reprinted with permission from Euthanasia Prevention Coalition.
From LifeSiteNews
Of the 662 people who were not in danger of death but succumbed to medical assistance in dying last year, 47.1 percent cited as reasons for wanting to die ‘isolation or loneliness.’
Official government data shows that about half of Canadians who are not terminally ill yet wanted to end their lives via state-sanctioned assisted suicide did so last year because they said they were lonely.
According to data published by Health Canada on December 11 in its fifth annual report on medical assistance in dying (MAID), 15,342 people were approved for and died by euthanasia in 2023.
A total of 14,721 of these deaths were in cases where illness or disability were likely down the road or considered “reasonably foreseeable.” These are called Track 1 MAiD deaths.
However, 662 deaths were people who were not dying. Of these Track 2 deaths, 47.1 percent cited as reasons for wanting to die “isolation or loneliness.” By comparison, about 21.1 percent of Track 1 deaths reported the same feelings for wanting to die by doctor-led suicide.
The report stated that “social isolation and loneliness are shown to have a serious impact on physical and mental health, quality of life, and longevity.”
Of the Track 2 deaths, 35.7 percent lived alone, compared with 30.2 percent of Track 1 deaths. Of Track 1 deaths, the average age was 77.7 years. The average age of Track 2 deaths was 75.
Of note is that this year’s Health Canada report on MAiD is the first to include so-called “verbal” requests from individuals as official. Previously, those who wanted to die via assisted suicide had to submit a form to Health Canada in order to be officially recorded as a request to die by suicide.
Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose Liberal government legalized MAiD in 2016, the deadly program has continued to relax its rules on who is eligible for death.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, 1 in 20 Canadian deaths in 2023 came from assisted suicide.
Instances of people being offered MAiD as a solution to their health issues have become commonplace in Canada, as reported by LifeSiteNews.
Last week, LifeSiteNews reported how a senior Canadian couple said that a hospice care center presented euthanasia to one of them as an option because they could not afford increased care costs on their fixed income.
Canadian pro-life leaders have criticized the Trudeau government’s continued push for expanding MAiD.
Indeed, most Canadians fear the nation’s euthanasia regime unfairly targets those who are financially and socially vulnerable while still supporting the immoral practice in general.
In 2021, the program expanded from killing only terminally ill patients to allowing the chronically ill to qualify. Since then, the government has sought to include those suffering solely from mental illness.
The number of Canadians killed by lethal injection under the nation’s MAiD program since 2016 stands at close to 65,000, with an estimated 16,000 deaths in 2023 alone. Many fear that because the official statistics are manipulated the number may be even higher.
Canada had approximately 15,280 euthanasia deaths in 2023.
From LifeSiteNews
Most Canadians fear the nation’s euthanasia regime unfairly targets those who are financially and socially vulnerable
A senior aged Canadian couple has said that a hospice care center presented euthanasia to one of them as an option as they were facing increased care costs they could not afford on their fixed income.
71-year-old Fred Sandeski from Saskatchewan, who suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) along with a host of other ailments such as diabetes and epilepsy, and his wife Teresa, who also has failing health, say death via Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying euthanasia program was suggested to them when they realized they would not be able to cover the costs associated with increased care at a hospice center.
According to the Epoch Times, when Fred started with palliative care, “they were just listing us the availability of what options they had for us,” and MAiD was presented as “one option.”
Thankfully, Sandeski refused MAiD, saying, “I really, really believe that the Lord has put me on this earth for a reason, and he’s not going to let me go until I’m done.”
Sandeski’s plight was brought to the attention of the provincial government of Saskatchewan by the opposition New Democratic Party’s shadow minister for seniors, Keith Jorgenson, who encouraged Saskatchewan Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill to help the couple.
In response, Cockrill said that he had reached out to the Sandeskis and would “find a solution that’s going to work for Fred and Theresa this week.”
He added that when it comes to the care home having offered them MAiD as a solution to their plight, he would “hope that any health care professional in this province, having those discussions with a patient has a strong understanding of the patient’s health and familial context.”
Instances of people being offered MAiD as a solution to their health issues have become commonplace in Canada, as reported by LifeSiteNews.
Indeed, most Canadians fear the nation’s euthanasia regime unfairly targets those who are financially and socially vulnerable while still supporting the immoral practice in general.
However, some provincial governments are looking at fighting back against Trudeau’s expansion of legal assisted suicide.
Recently, the United Conservative government of Alberta said it would push back against the Canadian federal government’s continued desire to expand euthanasia in the nation, announcing it will be launching a review of the legislation and policies surrounding the grim practice, which will include a period of public engagement.
Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose government legalized MAiD in 2016, the deadly program has continued to relax who is eligible for death.
In 2021, the program expanded from killing only terminally ill patients to allowing the chronically ill to qualify, as since then the government has sought to include those suffering solely from mental illness.
The number of Canadians killed by lethal injection under the nation’s MAiD program since 2016 stands at close to 65,000, with an estimated 16,000 deaths in 2023 alone. Many fear that because the official statistics are manipulated the number may be even higher.
Canada had approximately 15,280 euthanasia deaths in 2023.
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