As more Canadians opt for medical assistance in dying (MAiD), Canada's Bill C-7 expands the criteria so that more can qualify. Provincial government could save as much as $150 billion.
'Canada is very ill-prepared for the future': Medical Assistance in Dying for people with mental illnesses has left experts worried | Yahoo News Canada - Abhya Adlakha:
December 2, 2022 - "Medical assistance in dying (MAiD) was legalized in Canada in 2016. In light of the Carter decision, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) struck down the sections in the Criminal Code that prohibited assisting a person to die..... However, after the Truncheon case challenged the constitutionality of death being 'reasonably foreseeable” ... Bill C-7 [was passed] in March 2021.
"The Bill ... expands who can ask for assisted death.... Before, only those whose death was naturally foreseeable — called 'Track One' patients — qualified for medically assisted death.... The new law allows patients whose death is not reasonably foreseeable to qualify for MAiD — 'Track Two' patients — given that the new safeguards in place are met. For instance, track two patients require a minimum 90-day assessment period. The second biggest change introduced by Bill C-7 is that people suffering solely from grievous and irremediable mental illnesses also qualify for MAiD now. The law comes into effect on Mar. 14, 2023. The recent rise in cases of vulnerable people seeking MAiD in Canada in the last few months has left experts worried as they think the expanded legislation will only make matters worse.
"According to Dr. Kerry Bowman, a Canadian bioethicist and conservationist, the Tier Two applications are surfacing much deeper ethical questions than previously asked. 'Some of the factors that are now driving requests for medical assistance in dying are not medical—they're social, cultural, and political factors,' Bowman said. 'I don't mean to sound smug, but I saw this coming; it's getting very complicated. And once a government takes the position that some lives may not be worth living, it's a very hard position to hold in terms of justice.' Dr. Sonu Gaind, Chief of Psychiatry at Humber River Hospital and a member of the World Psychiatric Association, agrees.... 'I'm not a conscientious objector of MAiD, but I actually personally feel that the expansion is irresponsible,' Gaind said. 'Part of the reason I'm concerned about this is that what MAiD initially came in for, it's now drastically changing to become something else — and most people are unaware of that.'
"In April, the case of a 51-year-old was reported by CTV News — she had opted for medical euthanasia because her housing benefits didn't allow her to get better housing which didn't aggravate her crippling allergies to chemicals. Another disabled woman applied for MAiD because she couldn't 'afford to live'. A few months ago, another woman experiencing long-COVID symptoms for two years applied for medical euthanasia because her illness didn't qualify for the Ontario Disability Benefit Program (ODSP). She stated publicly that MAiD was exclusively 'a financial consideration' for her — she couldn't afford to live without support....
"The expert panel on MAiD and mental illness submitted their final report on May 13, 2022 and a list of 19 recommendations were made.... For starters, it was recommended by the board that establishing incurability and irreversibility should be done on a “case-by-case basis” by looking at the treatment history for each patient.... Dr. Gaind believes that this recommendation is shocking. 'They have essentially said that it’s not possible to define the number of treatments or the length or the type of treatment that someone should have before getting psychiatric euthanasia — there’s lack of standards and a lack of evidence, and this is pretty concerning,' Gaind believes. 'So now you have some doctors who set the bar too low for what’s 'incurable' and some who won’t administer MAiD because they believe something else — what that opens up is assessments that are completely arbitrary based on individual ideology. That's not medicine'....
"Another recommendation by the board states that MAiD assessors should understand that personal suffering is a subjective experience and that it should be assessed on a case-by-case basis. The patient also has the right to autonomy and refuse any interventions they do not wish to receive.... 'What drives the system here is the concept of autonomy, the personal choice of an individual and that’s very good. It’s a wonderful thing, but the downside of it is that now we’ve got people making requests because of poverty, housing, and structural vulnerability,' Dr. [Bowman] says. Dr. Gaind agrees ... and strongly believes that ... the idea of autonomy in such cases is also misleading and deceptive.... 'MAiD is meant for something where there is medical evidence that a condition will not get better — and that is complete deception when making predictions of irremediability for mental illness. Evidence shows that predictions of irremediability cannot be made in cases of mental illness!' Gaind added....
"In a scathing article on Canada’s decision to allow medical euthanasia in The Spectator, Yuan Yi Zhu pointed out Canada’s eye on the savings Bill C-7 would create for the government. According to Zhu, although the Canadian government insisted that assisted suicide is about 'individual autonomy', the country’s Parliamentary Budget Officer published a fiscal report about the costs savings Bill C-7 would create. The report mentioned that Bill C-14 (the original MAiD legislation) would save the provincial governments almost $87 million, while the expanded Bill C-7 would save the governments a further $62 million — a total of $149 million.... 'The system says it’s saving millions of dollars — it doesn’t matter how pure someone’s intent was'....
"With concerns now rising that incurability and irreversibility cannot be predicted with confidence, Dr. Gaind believes that MAiD for mental illness should be off the table. 'To me, the question then becomes when you ask which mistakes do you want to be making? Letting someone live with suffering or letting someone die when they could’ve gotten better? To me, one wrongful death is too many."
Read more: https://ca.news.yahoo.com/medical-assistance-dying-canada-rules-mental-illness-185533347.html
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