A bureaucracy of medical deception

 Quebec physicians told to falsify euthanasia death certificates

Regulators support coverup of euthanasia from families

Sean Murphy*

A bureaucracy of medical deceptionIn the first week of September, the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) was reported to be “seeking ‘clarity'” about whether or not physicians who perform euthanasia should misrepresent the medical cause of death, classifying death by lethal injection or infusion as death by natural causes. The question arose because the Quebec College of Physicians was said to be “considering recommending” that Quebec physicians who provide euthanasia should declare the immediate cause of death to be an underlying medical condition, not the administration of the drugs that actually kill the patient.1 In fact, the Collège des médecins du Québec and pharmacy and nursing regulators in the province had already made the decision. In August, the three regulators issued a Practice Guide directing Quebec physicians to falsify death certificates in euthanasia cases.

The physician must write as the immediate cause of death the disease or morbid condition which justified [the medical aid in dying] and caused the death. It is not a question of the manner of death (cardiac arrest), but of the disease, accident or complication that led to the death. The term medical aid in dying should not appear on this document.2

Lawyer Jean Pierre Ménard correctly observed that Quebec’s euthanasia law does not require physicians to report euthanasia on death certificates.1  M. Ménard is an expert on euthanasia law consulted by the Quebec government and the CMA,3  but he seems unaware of guidelines relevant to the classification of deaths and medico-legal death investigations. . . [Full text]

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