CHARBONNEAU – Medical assistance in dying gets more complicated

I THOUGHT THAT medical assistance in dying was fairly simple. It was all about my life, my death, my choice.

But even when I wrote about MAID in 2018, there were complications.

Back then, I wrote about a dying man who requested MAID but was denied because the Catholic care facility where he lived had decided that his life and his death were in their hands.

The man, Horst Saffarek, was in agony and dying. His lungs were failing and he felt like he was suffocating.

Despite the suffering that Saffarek was going through, the residential care facility where he was staying in Comox, B.C. would not allow MAID.

Finally Saffarek was transferred from Comox to Nanaimo, a gruelling one and a half hour ride by ambulance. He died the day after the transfer without the comfort of MAID.

Back then I wondered if I would ever be in Saffarek’s shoes. I wrote:

“Horst Saffarek’s experience leaves me wondering why I should suffer the vagaries of the anachronistic legacy of institutions, and other’s moral values that impose themselves on my life and death. Whose life is it, anyway?”

I now realize that my life is not an island. I don’t live in a care facility that would determine my access to MAID but I do live in a society that can affect the quality of my life.

It turns out that the culture we live in can lead people to request MAID even though they could live comfortably if they had proper care.

The lack of a suitable home contributed to an Ontario woman’s request for MAID.

The woman, in her 50s, with a history of depression, anxiety and suicidal intentions, received MAID in part because she couldn’t find housing that would relieve her suffering from multiple chemical sensitivity syndrome, a rare condition in which pain, fatigue, rashes and other ailments arise from mild exposure to chemicals.

Another man in his 40s was told about MAID during a psychiatric assessment. He suffered with inflammatory bowel disease, was socially isolated and addicted to opioids and alcohol. His family wasn’t consulted beforehand and the MAID provider drove him to the location where he received an assisted death.

These are just two of the troubling findings of Ontario’s . One of the committee members, Ramona Coelho, says:

“A lack of proper care and inadequate safeguards are driving some Canadians with disabilities to choose assisted death. This is just one of the disturbing findings revealed . . . (Globe and Mail, Oct, 28, 2024).”

MAID would be simple if those living in poverty, without suitable housing or a treatable medical condition didn’t have to choose death because their lives were unbearable. MAID was not intended to resolve societal issues.

As of Oct. 30, Quebec went further to allow advance applications for MAID for those who have “a serious and incurable illness leading to incapacity to give consent to care.”

So, if I have an incurable illness now that will leave me unable to decide the time of my death in the future, someone else will decide for me.

What could possibly go wrong?

David Charbonneau is a retired TRU electronics instructor who hosts a blog at http://www.eyeviewkamloops.wordpress.com.