These cases did not involve patients with terminal illness; Critics of the law say mental health issues played a significant role in the decision to choose death. While MAID for non-terminally ill patients has been legal since 2021, critics say expanding eligibility goes too far.
This text is a translation of an article from CTV News.
See also – Expanding medical assistance in dying: “it’s one less stress”
Last year, 15,343 people benefited from the MAID program, an increase of 15.8% compared to the previous year. Of those who participated in the program in 2023, 95.9% of patients faced a “reasonably foreseeable” natural death – cases known as “Track 1.”
The remaining 622 patients fell under strand 2: these are cases where a long life is possible, but the patient chose death due to other factors, which may include mental health problems.
Although it is no longer necessary to have a terminal illness to benefit from the program, eligibility remains limited to adults with what Health Canada calls a “serious or incurable illness, condition or disability.” who are faced with “an advanced stage of irreversible decline in their capacities” and who “experience lasting and intolerable physical or psychological suffering which cannot be alleviated in conditions that they consider acceptable”.
Dr. Sonu Gaind, professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, says the system as it currently works is worrying.
“This is particularly concerning regarding the pathway to MAID for people with disabilities who are not dying, because in this pathway the nature of suffering parallels traditional markers of suicide,” a- he explained to CTV News during an interview on Saturday. “This includes things like feeling like a burden and a strong sense of loneliness.”
The StatCan report found that in the 622 MAID cases where natural death was not “reasonably foreseeable,” 47% of people suffered from isolation or loneliness and 49% saw themselves as a burden to their family, their friends and those who cared for them.
“The only reason these people died last year is because they benefited from MAID,” Mr. Gaind added. “We are talking here about people who, in some cases, had more than ten years to live. This should alert us.
Critics of current medically assisted dying laws argue that people with disabilities need better support and resources, instead of providing them with the option of medically assisted dying. In September, a coalition of disability rights groups filed a Charter challenge in Ontario over a section of Canada’s medically assisted dying law.
“It’s discriminatory because when other people express loneliness, loss of dignity or desire to die, we usually respond with support or prevention – but with people with disabilities, we respond with an offer of MAID », Launched Isabel Grant, professor of law at the University of British Columbia, during an interview with CTV News on Saturday.
Critics argue that MAID should be reserved exclusively for Track 1 patients, and that disabled or ill people are capable of living for many years.
“For these situations, I don’t think we kill under honest pretexts; These are false pretexts,” said Mr. Gaind. “We pretend that we give death to illness, when in reality the MAID provisions are fueled by very different suffering.”
But defenders of current medically assisted dying laws say tightening restrictions will create additional obstacles for people considering medically assisted dying.
“These are people who are suffering intolerably, who have a serious and irremediable illness and who are thinking about the end of their lives,” Helen Long, of Dying with Dignity Canada, told CTV News on Thursday. “We don’t want to put up any more barriers or make the process any more difficult than it needs to be for them, while still maintaining the many very adequate safeguards that are in place.
Earlier this year, the Liberal government chose to delay for the third time the planned expansion of medical assistance in dying to include people whose only medical condition is mental illness until March 2027. As part of the Under the current system, eligibility for medical assistance in dying is only granted in cases involving an underlying physical illness.
Since the legalization of medical assistance in dying in 2016, Canada will have 28,584 beneficiaries of this assistance at the end of 2023.
