Health
Top Canadian psychiatrists urge gov’t to halt expansion of euthanasia to the mentally ill
From LifeSiteNews
Dr. Sonu Gaind, chief of psychiatry at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, said history shows that when enacting new laws relating to sensitive life matters, ‘The evidence shows that we are right less than half the time.’
Top Canadian psychiatrists warned that the country is “not ready” for the coming expansion of euthanasia to those who are mentally ill, saying expanding the procedure is not something “society should be doing” as it could lead to deaths under a “false pretense.”
As noted in a recent National Post opinion piece, seven of 17 chairs of psychiatry have written to Canadian Health Minister Mark Holland and Justice Minister Arif Virani to demand that the federal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pause the expansion of medical assistance in dying (MAiD) as it is known.
On March 9, 2024, euthanasia in Canada, or MAiD as it is known, will expand to include those suffering solely from mental illness. This is a result of the 2021 passage of Bill C-7, which also allowed the chronically ill – not just the terminally ill – to qualify for so-called doctor-assisted death.
The mental illness expansion was originally set to take effect in March. However, after massive pushback from pro-life groups, conservative politicians and others, the Liberals under Trudeau delayed the introduction of the full effect of Bill C-7 until 2024 via Bill C-39, which becomes law next year.
Dr. Sonu Gaind, who works as the chief of psychiatry at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, said that history shows when it comes to enacting new laws relating to sensitive life matters, “The evidence shows that we are right less than half the time.”
Proponents of MAiD have argued that there comes a point in time when a mentally ill individual is simply not curable. However, Gaind said that the notion of “incurability” might not even be possible.
Gaind said that as the evidence shows being wrong half the time, “That means that at least half the people who assessors say, ‘You’re not going to get better from your mental illness, and you can get MAID,’ at least half of those people would have gotten better.”
“Meaning, we would have provided death under a false pretence,” he added.
Gaind said there seems to be “no consensus on this issue,” and said he “firmly” thinks “we’re not ready for further expansion.”
As it stands now, a special joint parliamentary committee on MAID has reconvened to investigate the looming expansion of MAiD to the mentally ill.
Recently, LifeSiteNews reported on how pro-euthanasia lobbyists want Canada’s assisted suicide via lethal injection laws to be extended to drug addicts, which critics warn could lead the nation down a dangerous path nearing “eugenics.”
The delay in expanding MAiD until 2024 also came after numerous public scandals, including the surfacing of reports that Canadian veterans were being offered the fatal procedure by workers at Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC).
Offering MAiD to the mentally ill is not something ‘society should be doing,’ psychiatrist says
Dr. Jitender Sareen, head of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Manitoba, said that when it comes to MAiD, there is too much left in the hands of those who do the procedure.
“Offering people death instead of appropriate treatments” is something that “really goes against what we as a society should be doing,” Sareen said as per the National Post.
Sareen also said there is no guidance as to whether a doctor can determine whether a person is suicidal or simply wants to kill themselves via MAiD.
Recent attempts by the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) to stop the expansion of MAiD have failed.
MPs in the House of Commons voted down a private members’ bill introduced by CPC MP Ed Fast that would have repealed the expansion of euthanasia laws to those suffering from mental illness.
Pro-life advocates, such as Angelina Ireland, president of the Delta Hospice Society (DHS), have warned the Trudeau government expansion of MAiD to those who are mentally ill will lead to allowing “MAiD allows agents of the state to kill us and it’s actually called ‘non-culpable homicide.’”
Ireland recently told LifeSiteNews that it was important she made clear to participants who attended to “speak to some inconvenient truths” about just how bad MAiD is for Canada.
“There is no avenue for us to ‘sue’ them (the government) or charge them with murder. We have abdicated our power and given the government the supreme authority — the right and the privilege to murder us,” Ireland said to LifeSiteNews, which she also told the event participants.
Euthanasia deaths have gone through the roof in Canada since it became legal in 2016.
According to Health Canada, in 2022, 13,241 Canadians died by MAiD lethal injection, which is 4.1% of all deaths in the country for that year, and a 31.2% increase from 2021.
The number of Canadians killed by lethal injection since 2016 now stands at 44,958.
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From the Fraser Institute
In light of regular reports of hallway health care, regular closures of emergency rooms, and the longest wait times for care on record, it’s understandable that Canadians want dramatic improvements to their health-care system. For governments, particularly during budget season, improvement often means an increase in spending.
However, Canada already ranks among the most expensive universal health-care systems in the world. In 2022 (the latest year of comparable data), and after adjusting for population age in each country, Canada ranked fourth-highest for health-care spending as a share of the economy (11.5 per cent). For per-person spending, Canada ranked ninth. In other words, whichever way you look at it, Canada ranked among the top-third of spenders among 31 universal health-care countries.
That’s a lot of money. But what do Canadians get in return?
Canada ranked near the bottom (28th of 30) on the availability of physicians. Canada also had some of the fewest hospital beds and diagnostic equipment (including CT scanners and MRI units) per person.
Moreover, among nine universal health-care countries surveyed by the Commonwealth Fund, a health-care research organization, 65.2 per cent of Canadian patients reported waiting more than one month for a specialist appointment (8th worst out of 9 countries) compared to 35.7 per cent in top-ranked the Netherlands.
We see the same thing for patients trying to access timely non-emergency surgical care. In Canada, 58.3 per cent of patients reported waiting more than two months (9th worst of 9 countries), far more than in the Netherlands (20.3 per cent), Germany (20.4 per cent) and Switzerland (21.1 per cent).
While Canada clearly struggles on measures of availability and timely access to medical resources, it reported mixed results in other areas. For example, Canada performed well on measures of heart attack survival (ranked 8th of 26). And while Canada had average performance for stroke survivability, it remained a bottom of the barrel performer on safety measures such as obstetric trauma during birth (23rd of 23).
With relatively fewer key medical resources and long waits for non-emergency surgery, patients in Canada face major challenges. And this budget season, while governments may be keen to simply spend more, in reality Canadians do not currently receive commensurate value for their health-care dollars. Without fundamental reform, based on the experiences of other more successful universal health-care systems, it’s unlikely we’ll see improvement.
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