Fears about receiving “adequate, quality care” may be influencing “financially or socially vulnerable” Canadians to agree to euthanasia, with a recent study showing six in 10 citizens in the country generally reporting worries about the legally approved and supported killings.
Cardus, a Christian thinktank, released the report findings yesterday (Nov. 21) after the survey had been conducted with administrative support from the Angus Reid Institute.
The same study found that Canadians with disabilities found accessing appropriate and professional health care for their particular needs especially difficult.
In fact, 57 percent of respondents with severe disabilities reported discrimination because of their impairments or limitations when trying to get appropriate help. Half of respondents with moderate disabilities reported encountering the same prejudices when seeking support.
Examples of these reported issues include worse than expected access and quality care, difficulties finding a primary care doctor, and “inaccessible treatment or testing locations,” stated the Cardus survey report.
“Those living with severe disabilities also report the strongest concerns with who might opt for medical assistance in dying, or MAiD, due to issues with care, compared to those without disabilities,” added the report.
“Disability advocates have long been raising the alarm about how MAiD has introduced increased risk to the lives of vulnerable Canadians, compounding existing issues and discrimination within society and within healthcare,” said Dr. Rebecca Vachon, health program director at Cardus.
“And as recent MAiD reports from Ontario’s Chief Coroner have shown, alongside reporting on hundreds of compliance issues in Ontario, vulnerable Canadians are paying the price for failures in care.”
It is not only the patient themselves expressing concerns – healthcare workers are upset about their patients with disabilities getting quality care in time. 40 percent of these workers reportedly felt ill equipped to deal with the specific needs of these patients under their care.
Most Canadians reportedly support legal euthanasia but there are “undercurrents of concern,” according to Cardus. One in five believe euthanasia is being overused, with data showing this form of legalized killing as tying with strokes as the fifth leading cause of death in the country.
Restrictions on stopping doctors from raising the option of euthanasia are not imposed in Canada, unlike elsewhere in the world. In fact, six percent of Canadians were aware of a family member or close friend who had had MAiD suggested to them, “unsolicited,” according to the Cardus report.
37 percent of those being offered death as an option by a physician, within an unsolicited scenario, accepted it and presumably died.
“Canada has the fastest-growing euthanasia program in the world, which should prompt pause and reflection rather than continued expansion,” added Vachon, expressing her concern. “The law is supposed to protect the vulnerable. It’s not doing its job.”
