Tag: Jonathan Reggler

As criteria for medical assistance in dying shifts, calls for more alternatives, support for people who are suffering

 Vancouver Sun

Kristen Holliday

The last time Ray Chwartkowski saw his sister, Cheryl Lowen, was two days before she died in December, 2019.

On that day, he was shocked to learn that her death was scheduled, as she had been approved for medical assistance in dying, often referred to as MAID.

“She never had a diagnosis for any terminal illness,” he said. “I consider her death a total tragedy.”

Chwartkowski, a digital content creator who lives in Vancouver, hasn’t seen Lowen’s official MAID application or assessment paperwork, but he believes his sister should not have been eligible for medical assistance to end her life.

He said Lowen, who was 50 when she died, had a difficult childhood and struggled with physical and mental health problems throughout her life. In mid-2019, she was diagnosed with median arcuate ligament syndrome, a chronic illness that causes severe abdominal pain.

Chwartkowski said he has compassion for her pain but is certain she didn’t meet MAID’s criteria of a reasonably foreseeable death. He also questions her ability to make a well-informed decision after receiving the difficult diagnosis.

“From what I understood, she was refusing to eat, she was refusing immediate medical attention,” said Chwartkowski, adding that she also refused surgery to treat her condition. . . .

. . . Chwartkowski said, to his knowledge, Lowen applied for MAID twice and was denied the first time. . . . continue reading

One year after Canada’s medically assisted dying law, patients face uneven access

‘This dying, elderly man was stuck in the back of an ambulance so he could access his dying wishes’

CBC News

Nicole Ireland

“Martha” was stunned when her 78-year-old father told her he wanted a medically assisted death, after battling lung cancer for almost two years.

“It’s something you’ve never contemplated before in your family,” she said. “How do you prepare for this? This date that somebody’s going to pass away. It’s really hard.”

Martha has asked CBC News to use only her middle name, because children in her family don’t know that their grandfather’s death was medically assisted.  A year after Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying law passed on June 17, 2016, the issue remains highly controversial. . .  [Full text]

 

‘Take my name off the list, I can’t do any more’: Some doctors backing out of assisted death

National Post

Sharon Kirkey

Some doctors who have helped the gravely ill end their lives are no longer willing to participate in assisted death because of emotional distress or fear of prosecution if their decisions are second-guessed, according to their colleagues.

In Ontario, one of the few provinces to track the information, 24 doctors have permanently been removed from a voluntary referral list of physicians willing to help people die. Another 30 have put their names on temporary hold.

While they do not have to give a reason, a small number have advised the province they now want “a reflection period to decide whether medical assistance in dying is a service they want to provide,” according to a health ministry spokesman. . . [Full text]

 

Doctor affiliated with Catholic hospital speaks out against assisted-death ban

  The Globe and Mail

Laura Kane

A doctor affiliated with a Catholic hospital in a small British Columbia community says the facility’s likely ban on assisted-dying is a violation of terminally ill patients’ charter rights.

Dr. Jonathan Reggler said St. Joseph’s General Hospital is the only hospital in the Comox Valley and as a Catholic facility it generally forbids doctors from helping patients die, although a formal policy has not yet been adopted.

Reggler said terminally ill patients in hospital who want a doctor’s help to die will either be denied that right or have to be moved 50 kilometres to the nearest hospital in Campbell River. . . [Full text]