An elderly woman was euthanized within hours of her husband claiming she changed her mind after insisting she wanted to live.
Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying laws allow patients to request a painless death if an assessor agrees their terminal condition meets certain requirements.
Patients often wait weeks, but it can happen the same day the application is lodged if judged to be medically urgent by a MAiD provider.
But a report by the Ontario MAiD Death Review Committee raised concerns that safeguards were being eroded that led to questionable deaths.
One case study was that of a woman in her 80s referred to as ‘Mrs B’ who had complications after a coronary artery bypass graft surgery.
She went into severe decline and opted for palliative care, and was sent home from hospital with palliative support and her husband caring for her.
But as her condition got worse, her elderly husband struggled to care for her even with the help of visits by nurses.
‘Mrs B reportedly expressed her desire for MAiD to her family. In response, and on the same day, her spouse contacted a referral service on her behalf,’ the report read.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15489605/canadian-woman-euthanized-ontario-maid.html
Also related:
Euthanasia is coming – like it or not
TThroughout the short life of the Assisted Dying Bill which failed in the Commons, the ‘faith community’ (a quaint term for that category of human beings who throughout history have been more assiduous than any other in trying to kill each other) have with skill and persistence deployed an argument of great potency. Such is the argument’s intuitive appeal that the pro-assisted-dying brigade never found a way of countering it. They have resorted simply to denying that what the faith squad say would happen, could happen.
But it could. The argument is that licensing assisted dying is to smile upon the practice. The legal change would act as a cultural signal that society now approves. This would in time lead to pressure on those who might not otherwise have contemplated ending their lives, to hasten their own demise — so as ‘not to be a burden’ on others. One day (say the faith squad) it could even become the norm.
https://spectator.com/article/matthew-parris-assisted-dying-lives/?edition=us
h/t Little Lost