The Globe and Mail
Paul Taylor
The question: My father was in the advanced stages of prostate cancer and wanted a medically assisted death. He was told he needed the approval of two health-care providers. One said yes, but the other said no because he “was not in any distress.” But that decision was so wrong. My father was a very stoic man, and was not one to complain. Did the doctor want him to break down in tears and beg to be put to death? My father died two weeks later in a hospice – instead of his home, the place where he wanted to die.
The answer: It has been over a year and a half since Parliament passed a law that makes medical assistance in dying – called MAID for short – legal across Canada. The story you tell reflects one of the many challenges in creating a standardized system to handle these requests and to ensure that patients and their families are properly informed.
One key failing in your father’s case is that he was not apparently told he could have asked for another assessment after the second MAID assessor turned him down. If another assessor had agreed that he was eligible, he could have proceeded with an assisted death.
It’s impossible to say whether his assessors were unaware he had this option or simply failed to mention it.
Whatever the case, “we need to do a better job educating health-care providers about what they must be disclosing to patients,” says Jocelyn Downie, a professor in the faculties of law and medicine at Dalhousie University in Halifax.
In the meantime, it’s certainly worthwhile reviewing how the process is supposed to work. . . [Full Text]