Disabled Canadians encouraged towards euthanasia

Nurses in Canada are encouraging disabled people to consider euthanasia, a writer and campaigner has revealed.

Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) was initially introduced in 2016 only for over 18s who had a serious, advanced condition, disease or disability that was causing suffering and was terminal. However, it has since been widely expanded by the removal of the requirement for a patient to be terminally ill.

Heather Hancock, who has suffered from cerebral palsy since infancy, shared the change in attitude she had noticed from her carers since MAiD was introduced. Since then, the number of deaths by euthanasia has risen steadily by about a third each year.

’You’re being selfish’

Heather was “gobsmacked” when a nurse told her to consider euthanasia, saying: “You’re being selfish. You’re not living, you’re merely existing.”

Since the launch of the MAiD programme she has been offered the lethal drugs three separate times.

She commented: “They just view me as a drain on the medical system and that my healthcare dollars could be spent on an able-bodied person”.

When the nurse told her euthanasia would be doing “the right thing”, Heather explained that her life had value, even if much of it was wheelchair-bound, and she now campaigns against assisted suicide programmes in Canada.

Entirely unacceptable

Health Alberta spokeswoman said: “We are sorry and disgusted to hear of Heather’s experience”.

She added “In Alberta, there are no circumstances where an individual should ever be pressured into MAiD for any reason, let alone because an individual has a disability. What occurred here is entirely unacceptable.”

However, Heather’s case is not isolated, as Tracy Polewczuk, who has spina bifida, a birth defect that can cause weak bones, explained how she has twice been told about MAiD unprompted by her carers.

She said: “Pain sucks. We all agree. It’s terrible. I’m in pain 24/7. It never stops. I can survive that, I cannot survive being treated like a sack of meat.”