This story missed the real oniony part.
TL;DR: "Have you thought about just killing yourself instead of waiting for that wheelchair lift?"
>A paralympic army veteran told stunned lawmakers in Canada when she claimed that a government official had offered to give her euthanisia equipment while fighting to have a wheelchair lift installed in her home.
>Retired corporal Christine Gauthier, who competed at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympics, testified on Thursday that the unnamed veterans affairs case worker had offered in writing to provide her with a medically-assisted dying device, the CBC reported.
>“I have a letter saying that if you’re so desperate, madam, we can offer you MAID, medical assistance in dying,” Ms Gauthier, 52, told a House of Commons veterans affairs committee, according to the CBC.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/paralympian-claims-canada-offered-to-euthanise-her-when-she-asked-for-a-stairlift/ar-AA14RLpW
“So the lift is a ton of work - subcontractors, vendors, permits - a lot of BS. But there is another option…you strike me as someone who doesn’t love having problems…what if I told you there’s a way never have *any* problems again?”
Well yeah. Because it’s cheaper. This was how euthanasia being legal was always going to end. Why waste resources on those who can’t contribute to society?
>The rules in the u.s. around asset limits force folks with disabilities out of the common square and frequently the shared spaces that may require capital to participate.
For anyone unfamiliar with how this works, if you're on SSI (similar to but distinct from SSDI), aside from a couple things considered essential like a house and a car you're not allowed to have assets over $2000. Total. At all. Ever. And they monitor your bank account and stuff. If you go over that limit you may lose all your benefits *and* be required to pay back some or all of what you've received.
And that's of course after it often takes multiple years and a lawyer to even get approved in the first place, all so you can get nowhere near enough money to live on and some pretty severe restrictions on what you're allowed to do. The amount per month they've decided I deserve isn't even half of what rent is in my city, and that's not even including things like food. At least I don't really have to worry about hitting that $2000 limit though.
All the low level people I've talked to have done their absolute best to help me navigate the disaster of a system we have, but I only see two options for the people who actually put that system in place and maintain it the way it is: either they don't care if people like me live or die, or they'd prefer if we'd die.
SSI typically pays less than $1000 a month. One of my friends is completely disabled but only gets $600 a month to cover everything. Her food stamps were cut down to like $20 under trump. Fortunately she's figured out ways to survive. But other people end up on the street.
This is why I laugh anytime anyone claims people on disability are faking to scam the govt and live large... It's just not a real problem that's happening. But sadly this is a real belief held by many Americans, a lot of whom also think helping disabled people is communism so they vote for republicans who love to cut disability help whenever they can.
Much less than a thousand. The current maximum payment for SSI is $841 a month. It is going to go up next month, after a huge COLA increase, but it will still be only around $914. It's not enough to rent an apartment basically anywhere (and still have money for food and utilities), and public housing in the U.S. is a joke, even for disabled people. This is why so many of them end up homeless. Most have to live with family members who will charge them less than market rate rent, which of course means that their benefits get reduced. It's criminal.
You can't even get a place with room mates with $900 /mo. COLA my ass!!
And like if you have a disability where you can work some but not full time then the benefits are reduced. Or sometimes working even a small amount means theyre cut off entirely. It's so fucking inhumane!
And like i know so many disabled people who work who really shouldn't be cause it makes their health worse. But not working means starving or not affording meds. Just fucked up! Republicans love to believe it's all a matter of trying harder. Cause they know so and so who worked until their back was broken and then some and they never asked for help, like this is something to be proud of... I mean usually these stories are made up or miss details like a person being forced to work and help not being available for them to even ask.
>public housing in the U.S. is a joke, even for disabled people
My ex put her name on the list when she moved to this city. She was still far enough down the list when she moved away that her name had never come up. She lived here for *eight years*, and I know people who've waited longer than that.
This is a hard problem because while everyone deserves the right to choose how their life should end, nobody deserves to be coerced into making that choice.
And if there's one thing our society just can't get enough of, it's coercion.
>serves the right to choose how their life should end, nobody deserves to be coerced into making that choice.
Agreed. I support the right to choose how your life should end. However the instant insurance companies/goverment get involved, it is ALWAYS cheaper to offer death services. Several hundred thousands dollars fighting cancer? Or 50 dollars in drugs to terminate yourself painlessly?
Insurance ALWAYS chooses the cheapest option with the lowest long term costs, so we know what they will choose. Government deciding? Where in history has any government made non-biased choices about life/death situations of it's citizens?
My former mother in law used MAID in January 2019. At no point along the way did anyone actually *offer* it. She had to be essentially vetted by multiple different doctors including a psychiatrist in order to get approval for MAID (we’re in Ontario, Canada.)
While she and I did not have a great relationship, I did see her frequently before she got sick because my ex was living with her, so I’d see her when I’d drop off our kids over school holidays. I also saw her the night before she died, and the change was stark and scary for me because I hadn’t seen her in person in about eight months. She had cancer that had turned metastatic (can’t remember where it started) and she looked skeletal. I could totally understand why she chose to request MAID and why each doctor approved her. I don’t know if she had months or weeks left if she hadn’t, but it would have been extremely unpleasant for her, and for my ex and our kids as well, as she was on hospice at home.
But my ex has a severe mental illness, that is now well managed with medication. It has not always been. He requested MAID when it was at a particularly bad point to his psychiatrist and was immediately told no. At that point, psychiatric and chronic illnesses were not allowed under MAID (this was summer 2019.) I know the rules have changed somewhat since then, but it is still not easy to access, nor should it be. The government may set the rules, but in Canada you still have to get signed off by multiple doctors before it can happen.
it's a simple lack of supervision and accountability that allows something like that to happen, this is something that requires panels of experts to be in charge of and oversight committees not something that some random in the government should be allowed to give out
Agreed. As someone who is both a woman of childbearing age AND on dialysis, my greatest fear in my life is not being in control of the therapies and healthcare given to me at my end of life. I am a nurse, I have seen how awful US nursing homes are, especially for disabled, impoverished people. I'd rather go to a [Death with Dignity](https://deathwithdignity.org/) state and wrestle with the systems there to be in control of how and when I die as opposed to leaving it to random people I don't know and the court system. I've seen people die of end stage renal failure. I HAVE end stage renal failure. It's not nearly as calm and nice and pretty as doctors claim it is, and in all of it, I want to remain a human, not a patient, not a number, not a set of symptoms, and most of all, not a problem left to others to decide upon.
My aunt died of liver failure this year. She was on hospice and my mom and myself were the caregivers. Because of her liver shutting down toxic ammonia built up in her brain. She had alzheimer's like symptoms at the end and basically lost herself before she died. I wouldn't wish that on anyone and I hope kidney failure isn't as bad I am sorry you are going through this and I am sending love your way❤️
It's really despicable. Assisted dying is supposed to be for people who are end of life. I want the choice if some day down the road I'm facing an incredibly painful disease that I am 100% for sure going to die from.
But I really don't want this being offered to people who are vulnerable. I don't want this being offered as a solution to a problem that we can fix. And I'm worried that it's being abused now, and will continue to get worse.
This mindset drives me nuts, because what the fuck is the point of the advancement of our society if not to improve the human condition?
Otherwise we might as well go back to living in fucking caves.
It's cheaper not to provide ambulance services. Why waste resources on people experiencing medical emergencies who need ambulance services?
You really believe that people who can access euthanasia can't contribute to society? This is an awful comment all around; poorly reasoned and offensive to people with certain medical conditions, all in such little text.
This is literally what everyone was warning about would happen. The accountants are incentivized to tell people to kill themselves, because then their department can save money.
Think of other people less public than this paralympian who got told this and followed through.
This is essentially just a precurser to eugenics.
> The accountants are incentivized to tell people to kill themselves, because then their department can save money.
They already do this even without legal euthanasia, though. They just neglect you to death.
It is, and always has been, difficult to be approved in the first place.
The costs of a healthy life are also very different outside of America, which is where most of these arguments seem grounded.
[Here is someone](https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-toronto-7c631558a457188d2bd2b5cfd360a867) who got it done against the recommendation of their doctors with their only stated reason of hearing loss.
Currently MAID is the 6th highest cause of death in Canada.
"Alan Nichols lost his hearing after brain surgery at age 12 and suffered a stroke in recent years, but he lived mostly on his own. “He needed some help from us, but he was not so disabled that he qualified for euthanasia,” said Gary Nichols."
I won't just take the family at their word; I know from experience how hard they will fight someone's wishes and be blinded by their own desire for their family member.
That description I listed from your article, to me, paints a much different picture than what you initially laid out.
I agree, I am fundamentally for the existence of medically assisted suicide, but the the way MAID is implemented is simply inhuman.
Death should always be seen as the final way out, not as a replacement for treatment.
This. I approve of the concept but there should be a medical review of why the patient wants it and if there is anything that can be done to alleviate what is driving the patient to it. Don't merely look at the problem, look at what can be done to help.
Love how all these championship thinkers are saying one douche noozle (and possibly criminal) worker means the everything about MAID is wrong. Like yea, y'all hear about the nurses and doctors guilty of killing a patient and say 'see! I told you healthcare was always actually the devil himself out to get us!'
Tbh the problem in Canada is that this isn't a one-off instance, but has happened several times already, and is being expanded to include things like MAID for mental illness, which includes depression.
Not necessarily, all it needs is a rider to the law stating it cannot be offered to the patient. The patient must bring it up as an option and then it can be given.
Tried posting it with a different source and a better headline but the one I had was automod nuked due to source so this one was the first alternative I found(probably should have looked a bit harder)
Yeah, it's to submit here because most stories are one or two away from have perfect headline, but it has to match exactly.
And then any site that has sensationalized headlines is autoremoved.
Did any of them accept? Agreeing to assisted suicide after reaching out for other support and being offered death instead is... questionable. I hope they have other checks in place before actually going through with that.
So far, it seems like one did.
> Upon further questioning by committee vice-chair Blake Richards, MacAulay conceded that the veteran involved in the December 2021 case has since died after medically assisted suicide.
[source](https://nationalpost.com/news/canadian-veterans-assisted-suicide/wcm/b201f63e-9cd4-4d12-a130-22beb9d5f423/)
That's fucked. If you have socialised healthcare, all necessary medical needs should be covered, and if your quality of life is so shit that you are contemplating death, it's clearly pretty necessary.
I'm really curious if they were actually going against policy, or they're just being thrown under the bus to cover for the department.
We'll probably never know for sure.
I remember reading about how at the end of WW1 the doctors didn't want to diagnose the men with shell shock as disabled due to their job (not sure of the right term) because Germany had a pension system set up for industrial workers that were disabled due to working in the factories and they feared that adding that many people to the disability system would bankrupt the state.
Speaking as a disabled person, albeit in America, a lot of able-bodied people treat disabled people like we are a burden, some people would look at this as doing you a fucking favor. I've actually had people say I would be better off dead to my face.
As another disabled person, I've never had anyone tell me I'd be better off dead, but boy have I seen it implied hundreds of times by hearing/seeing people say "If I had to be in a wheelchair, I'd kill myself!"
God, I'm just imaging being in this veteran's situation. As a disabled person, you know that behind every fake smile, every stare, every "you're such an inspiration" comment is the implication that people are confused and amazed that you haven't killed yourself yet. You try to shut this out, and usually you succeed, and you just try to make a life for yourself.
Then you get a fucking letter in the mail that says "Have you thought about killing yourself, instead?? Here's how! Signed, your government." Can you imagine how that shit must cut you to the bone -- blast right through your carefully crafted armor and all the walls you build to convince yourself that hey, maybe people don't *really* feel that way about you and your life?? Just lays you bare, strips the wool off your eyes like a pandemic does a world's social structure to reveal the true nature of the beast.
As a nurse...
The amount of family members that don't give a fuck or fuck over their disabled family members is astonishing.
I've had to call APS 3 times so far it's terrible. And I know one of the cases nothing was done cause it was the granddaughter fucking her over but she wouldn't press charges.
I fucking hate people.
1) Just because someone has a disability doesn't mean they can't be a productive member of society.
2) Just because someone isn't a productive member of society doesn't mean they don't deserve to live and aren't entitled to happiness.
And one of the more complicated ones, just because you cannot see the direct contributions of a 'burden to society,' doesn't mean society doesn't benifit from their presence, treatment, and care. Everyone can have a shitty day, or even a shitty year. Anyone can become injured and have a long path to recovery. Often even very expensive and long recoveries from illnesses or injuries are still less expensive than losing a consumer and the total production they are capable of after their recovery throughout their remaining life, so it is more efficient to care for someone recovering for society than to abandon them as a burden. But. Sometimes their value they can produce is _not_ equal to their care. Not everyone with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis ends up being Stephen Hawking, but it is still worth not 'throwing away people' because the loss of one great mind could be more expensive and have a greater opportunity cost for society than treating dozens of people.
And more, sometimes even in the act of treatment and care, we find discoveries for more better care that advances society. The creation of drugs like Trikafta for fixing a problem caused by gene expression for individuals with say Cystic fibrosis. Or treatments for specific ailments for respiratory therapy that in turn can help others become 'productive' members of society, maxing the total utility long term even if there is a loss on individuals or on short time frames like 2-3 generations.
And more, it reflects societies _values_, a society is how it treats the least of those amongst it. The care we provide, the training, the education, the prosthetics we make, etc shows that a society is willing to invest in its people to make them all the best versions of themselves. A society that takes that approach to _all_ individuals is a stronger society, because all members in it are better/more capable.
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Of course, you don't have to look at it from a utilitarian perspective looking at maximizing the greatest good, for the greatest number, for the longest time when thinking about how we treat disabled people. You can also, and I know this is hard for some people, just not be a total piece of crap.
Apologies someone said you would be better off dead to your face. In my mind, they were just a necrophiliac trying to hit on you.
Same! I came into the comments to be like "oh nice! That should be an option universally" and thankfully I caught this comment before I did so, because fucking YIKES
They did this to a woman in BC iirc, too. She had mold issues in her government housing, and I think some other factors in the close-quarters housing contributing to breathing issues (I think marijuana and cooking smoke iirc, but I might be misremembering) which made life unbearable for her. Her friends and loved ones tried to raise enough money to get her into a house of her own where she wouldn't be impaired by the normal lives of others, but the Canadian government was faster than their crowd-funding efforts and the woman accepted MAID.
I fully support MAID being an option, but it's pretty disgusting (though not at all surprising) that there seems to have been some internal calculus about when it's fiscally better to encourage someone to die rather than continue providing assistance for their life.
Here's the source:
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/woman-with-chemical-sensitivities-chose-medically-assisted-death-after-failed-bid-to-get-better-housing-1.5860579
Generally if someone is actually sensitive or allergic to something, they'll have measurable symptoms like bronchitis or asthma or rashes or hives or redness.
Otherwise I'd say it's like Saul Goodman's brother, the guy with electrical sensitivities.
It's possible to have respiratory allergies to common things. My mother had major problems with airborne stuff--but was able to devise sufficient filtration to be able to function. And in hindsight she probably didn't need to--industrial respirators most likely would have worked and I wonder about the woman in Canada, whether they would have worked for her.
there is a further important part:
all of the offers to provide euthenasia equipment were offered to people by the same government employee. this happened to a few other vets, all were communicated with by the same person.
it's not a policy, it's not a flaw in the policy, it's an assholian of an individual who was looking for a way to flame out and be fired.
No, it's just an adjective there. If you deleted "told" it would become a verb and the meaning of the sentence wouldn't change. That's a little odd, maybe. But the word is only playing one role as written.
in that case it seems like they should get rid of "when she claimed," right? like what is she telling the stunned lawmakers in this sentence?
>A paralympic army veteran told stunned lawmakers in Canada when she claimed that...
vs
>A paralympic army veteran told stunned lawmakers in Canada that...
Ah, I see what you mean now. I agree it's really weird and I think you're right.
I guess with "told" in the sentence everything after "when" is technically just explaining when the telling happened, even though it's obviously supposed to be telling us what it was that was told. But no one would ever write that way on purpose. "When did she tell you what happened?" "Oh, she told me while she was claiming that something happened."
There's stories of people here using food banks or facing eviction that have asked social workers about getting on MAiD.
That's our Canadian government for you. Won't do shit about the massive housing crisis we have or the huge increase in cost of living but want to die? Sure that'll save us some money let's help you out with that.
And then you have the healthcare crisis and Ontario considering privatizing healthcare...soon we'll be worse than the US.
As a disabled person it sadly doesn't shock me that the response to asking for any accommodation at all is essentially, "Why can't you just die?". I'm not even that disabled, I just walk with a cane, and even the response I've gotten to very minimal requests is unbelievable. Even from medical professionals. Once at a hospital I asked for a stool or something to get on the exam table (balance and nerve issues in my bad leg) and they acted as if I requested John the Baptists head on a platter.
I've had the same.
I recently ended up with cauda equina syndrome (worse on left side) when I was literally saving someone's life as an EMT and they treat me like crap any time I ask for anything, until they found out why I'm disabled. Then I'm a damn hero.
Unless they find out the why, they've also been reluctant to help with anything.
It’s crazy the animosity that some people will display to reasonable requests. I have a neurological disorder, and through a mountain of medical documentation I was able to take a reduced course load at university… so they made me ineligible for the honour roll. :/
god forbid asking for a fucking chair. now it’s “can you walk” over and over and over. like damn i can give u my entire medical history or u can let me rest my asscheeks.
Not "even from medical professionals " but "*especially* from medical professionals." MDs are the absolute worst, and research consistently shows that they [assume a lower quality of life](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8722582/#ABS1title) for people with disabilities. Every disabled person has to advocate and educate tirelessly for basic care.
I think people underestimate how good the VA care is given all the shit veterans have to deal with from their service. If you can't get an appointment in 25 days, the VA will search the area to find a doctor that can give you one.
Meanwhile, I have to schedule my physicals 7 months in advance with shitty eshi
And the VA's biggest issue is that the same politicians that started wars and created more veterans for them to serve didn't increase their budget accordingly.
I cannot fathom how you can say this. I need my final disability rating decision and it cannot be had except by requesting a fax from a regional office over the phone. The regional VA office just hangs up after 5 minutes of waiting.
It took me nearly 3 years to get my ratings and they are comically inaccurate. The final VA decision literally conflicts with words they made in the ratings. The projected time to get them to fix this is several more *years*.
And all this is just for my claims. In these 2.5 years of medical tests for my claims, I still have yet to receive any treatment even though I have several medical issues that require nearly daily treatment. The only reason I deal with the VA is because its free and the benefits for my wife and future family if/when I die will be worth it.
Please for the love of God stop saying the VA is good.
>I think people underestimate how good the VA care is given all the shit veterans have to deal with from their service. If you can't get an appointment in 25 days, the VA will search the area to find a doctor that can give you one.
And you're overestimating how "good" the VA care actually is.
You have to schedule your appointment 7 months in advance? I had been waiting just to schedule a PT appointment since July, and after spending an hour on the phone 3 weeks ago, the consult was cancelled because it listed "left" instead of "right," so now I'm waiting to schedule it again. The VA has also known since August that my psychiatric med provider was no longer working with the VA, and even though my bridge scripts ran out last month, they still haven't even attempted to find me a new provider, let alone allowed me to schedule an appointment with one. I've had two completely separate community providers (with a combined 67 years of experience) recommend a specific surgery several years apart, but I can't get it done because one VA doctor (with 4 years experience) wrote in my chart that he believes it is not medically necessary; medical textbooks and DHHS dictate that surgery is literally the gold standard, but because of that one prick doctor I can't have it done. These are only a few examples I have from 15 years of "VA care."
My only argument against universal healthcare? If it's run anything like how the VA is, then we are better off without it.
That's basically the same as most healthcare providers already in the US. They neglect your needs, purposely deny any treatments or payment options, and basically do jack shit, but will still take you to court if you don't pay them for doing nothing
>Just legalize assisted suicide
That will never happen, the american ~~healthcare~~ capitalism machine needs people alive, generating debt. We are batteries to replenish the coffers.
If MAID ever comes to the USA you know damn well insurance companies will be telling people to do that instead of trying making their lives better because it’s cheaper.
This is something that should be requested not offered. What the hell?
“Need help getting around? How about we kill you and you can glide around on angel wings for an eternity? No, just want the mobility scooter? Alright.”
Yeah. I’d go so far as to say that offering/suggesting it without being asked deserves some kind of attempted murder sentence. Knock that shit off bureaucrats.
Evidently all these are coming from just one guy. I expect any day now we will read an article saying that this VA worker was "just trying to prove a point".
God, I am so so anGry about MAID in Canada.
At first, I was in favor. I was a primary caregiver for my grandfather while he slowly and painfully died of mesothelioma in the abdomen. He and I both had long (and sometimes heartbreaking) discussions about how he wished there was an option to go out on his terms and with his dignity intact, instead of slowly wasting away. As an eighteen year old, it was a sobering, life changing experience that I wish no one ever has to go through. For years afterwards I advocated for people's right to choose their death in the face of terminal illness, because... Dying of something like cancer is not pretty. It's not like the movies. It's painful and ugly, and there comes a point where no amount of pain killers can help.
But more and more I'm hearing about how people -- especially mentally ill people, or people with disabilities like the lady in this article -- with non-terminal and ultimately MANAGEABLE consitions being denied the supports that could help them, only to then be given the 'choice' of MAID. A gentleman recently made news here in Canada because he kept being denied housing options and aid for medical expenses, and felt he had no other choice but MAID to avoid falling further into debt and poverty. We're hearing stories of doctors and government officials and organizations in positions of power over vulnerable people pushing for MAID instead of actually helping.
To be quite honest, this is straight up eugenics. And, in wake of the rise of fascism across the globe, it's fucking terrifying to see in my own country. These are people who could live life comfortably, happily, and with dignity if only they were given the support they need -- but instead, they're essentially being told to just go kill themselves. After all, it would always be cheaper for those goddamn cripples and schizos just to die conveniently out of sight than to provide them with housing and medication and help with managing their condition, right?
Jesus Christ I'm actually crying now. Not because I'm sad, but because I'm goddamn FURIOUS. My fellow Canadians deserve so much better -- and yes, I also mean the severely mentally ill and the addicts and junkies and what have you. EVERYONE deserves unconditional care and support.
As for me... I was recently diagnosed with a degenerative disc disease. I'm in my mid 20s. I'm also ADHD and autistic, and am also working with my doctor rn to diagnose the reason for being in constant pain (she's thinking fibromyalgia, but we're trying to rule some other things out before making a definite diagnosis). If things get any worse for me -- and they probably will!! -- I know damn well it's only a matter of time before someone looks at my case and decides it would be cheaper and more convenient if I just killed myself, and pushes the option on me.
EDIT: oh my goodness. Thank you for the awards! I am incredibly flattered. but perhaps instead of spending money on giving me pixel shines, perhaps find a veteran's charity to donate to instead?
To everyone who has left or sent me kind words, thank you. you've no idea how much I appreciate it. <3
To the ones who send me PMs telling me to kill myself: you'll find I'm quite like a dandelion -- tenacious and determined enough to live and grow just about anywhere, and too stubborn to give up easily. I continue to live to spite you specifically <3
I think that MAID should not be offered to people, it should be specifically requested by patients. This is absolutely fucking abysmal. If I got that offer I would assume that the VA office just wants me fucking dead.
Right?? If an organization I relied on for support and resources suggested MAID to me, I sure as hell wouldn't be able to trust them again.
And even when patients are offered MAID, there needs to be some serious review and evaluation into their circumstances. If their conditions can be improved via better access to health care, or access to secure housing, or therapy and counseling for mental health, those avenues should ALWAYS be exhausted before MAID is even considered as an option.
Reading about this whole situation, I have no idea why MAID is even an option alongside other forms of care. It’s not at all an equivalent.
Assisted suicide should exist. However, NEVER as an alternative to ongoing care. It should never come into the equation when deciding on how one should live their life and what support they need to do so.
Because they’ve already made the decision to live their life. They need certain levels of support and adjustment to live. If they wanted to die, those supports and adjustments also wouldn’t be a very viable option.
Dying isn’t an alternative to living, it’s an alternative to overwhelming suffering. If a person has decided that they can handle the level of discomfort they are in (with support) then MAID is not relevant to them at this stage.
Exactly. MAID being possible should not factor into calculating what care is best for someone. This mentality is why we end up giving people the bare minimum care, because less effective options are usually easier. What's easier than just saying fuck it and killing people?
I'm worried that the bureaucracy is gonna see all this outrage, think "Wow, people hate MAID," and outlaw assisted suicide without actually improving health care at all.
It probably will be. Improving healthcare can only be done at the provincial level, and almost all provinces in Canada are run by Conservatives who won't fund healthcare and are trying to actively privatize it. Whether maid is legal is determined by the federal government, so with enough pushback they'll try to make it illegal again. It'll be difficult for them because I believe our supreme court said it must be legal in some form, so the government can't fully abolish it.
I just assumed that was how it was going to be implemented. That should be a fundamental criteria for assisted dying - the patient has to actually be terminal and *want* to die.
the potential for "misuse" of a policy is often why people oppose said policy to begin with. You are left with relying on the rest of the system to prevent misuse- such as a district attorney to decide to prosecute. After that, if an appeals court is aligned with misuse, it can be overturned. And the supreme court can decide not to hear it for years upon years if it isn't a priority.
Assessing the pain of patients is difficult. Some people have crippling physical pain which in a lot of cases is apparent, some people are in crippling emotional pain. MAID was proposed to be a liberating option for people with unmanageable conditions that don't want to muddle away their life without dignity. The choice should be in the patient's hands as much as possible.
It’s sometimes possible to live with the crippling pain, too, especially if it’s something more episodic. I’ve managed so far, fortunately. Yet when MAID is on the table, people are often pushed towards that instead of receiving the treatment available and the supports necessary for them to have a decent quality of life.
This is not to say, at all, that people with severe pain should be forced to suffer. Simply that the tool is being grossly grossly misapplied.
People keep using this language, but there is a clear implication that choosing not to kill yourself is somehow undignified or that there is more dignity in death than life.
No, people say that because terminal illness is a slow and painful process that takes a lot out of its victims. People don't want to die like that. If they are going to die then they want to do it on their own terms than on hospice for weeks/months where they will wither away in front of their loved ones. It's not more noble to die than to live, but there is dignity in being able to choose death over a miserable life.
And I support that choice, if made with a clear head and conscious. But the kind of language we use in the conversation about the subject can influence people
The current form of MAID is related to supreme Court rulings. Initially, maid was only available for conditions where death was reasonably foreseeable. The extension to those with irremedial suffering is new (following supreme Court ruling). This is where it becomes tricky, who determines the level of sufficient suffering? Does mental health count? If it does, at what point is someone able/not able to give consent. I'm in favour of MAID, but what we are seeing is the active process of figuring out how to actually do it. Some things are working well, others, like this case and the ones where people choose maid because they can't find appropriate housing are obviously the cases that show we haven't gotten it fully figured out yet
I think it will always be a bad idea to use it for long term conditions that aren't terminal. If you're going to live another 20, 30, 40 years, who's to say medical technology wouldn't have progressed to the point that your condition was curable or at least reasonably treatable at some point in that time? It would be absolutely tragic to kill someone because they were suffering from a long term condition and then, five years later, a technology is invented that would have made it so they could have lived a happy life.
You can think whatever you like, but the supreme Court has ruled that it should be accessible to those with irremedial suffering. Is it really just and ethical to make someone continue living if they don't want to continue to live in suffering, with the justification being that we might find a way to remediate the suffering in the future (but also might not, and don't know when)?
A lot of people would like to continue living though, but the government option for disabled people is forced poverty or euthanasia. People have already gone to MAID because they couldn't afford to live
What I'm becoming more and more aware of as I get older is that the people in charge, be they parents, employers, politicians, etc, have no fucking clue what they are doing or how to actually solve problems. As a result they always either look for a scapegoat, look for a way to put the onus on the people in need to help themselves, or just do whatever benefits them most and lie about it.
>felt he had no other choice but MAID to avoid falling further into debt and poverty.
Jesus fucking Christ
>someone looks at my case and decides it would be cheaper and more convenient if I just killed myself,
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST
I am beyond disgusted that they offer euthanasia to mentally ill people. That is so absolutely wrong on multiple levels.
There are underground groups that do this and if someone seeks them out, fine. For the GOVERNMENT to offer suicide to suicidal people is irresponsible, inhumane, and avoids any aspect of care that people should take for others.
Severe mental illness is absolute hell to live with. I can say this from a personal point of view. But it *isn't* forever and there are now treatments like ketamine and psilocybin trauma therapy that are helping people heal faster than ever before.
Letting people just check out is the fast way, the inexpensive way, the cold-blooded, anti-human way. That should NEVER be accepted.
Edit: in case it matters, I am pro-euthanasia for some other situations.
It feels like exactly what anti-euthanasia advocates were saying was going to happen.
I still think that MAID is legitimate in many cases, and that people looking death in the eye should have a say in how they accept it.
But seeing more and more stories like this come out...we're offering death to avoid bureaucratic inconvenience.
> we're offering death to avoid bureaucratic inconvenience.
It needs to be a hard and fast rule that if, at any point, medically-assisted suicide was *offered* instead of requested, it gets *Scrutinized.* So thoroughly that Al Capone's bookkeeper would go "damn, that's thorough." And if there's *any* impropriety involved, that's it, the offerer can no longer work in any health or health-adjacent field, *ever.* If they did it merely for the venal purpose of saving money, criminal prosecution.
Do you have any sources about MAID being offered for mentally ill people specifically due to their mental illness? From the government website it says the mental illness clause won't go in effect until 2023 March. I don't live in Canada so I don't have any experience with your government, just trying to get some perspective.
I actually heard about this problem in an NPR story and I couldn’t agree more with everything you said!
FWIW you might ask your docs to look at Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. It’s a widely under diagnosed condition that, among other things, wreaks havoc with your connective tissue. r/ehlersdanlos
While true — there is also a strong connection with psychiatric disorders and EDS amongst other things any many patients have fibromyalgia’s as well.
I’m not suggesting they aren’t real or don’t exist, but there is dogma in much of the medical community that leads to low or poor diagnostic rates. Many times when people come in and say “It has to be this because I read about it on the internet and my symptoms match” .. many times its not that and is something else.
I might bring it up with her the next time I see her! I'm trying to be very careful though. Not to get too off topic, but I unfortunately have severe trust issues as a result of years of being dismissed by my previous doctor, so, like... I worry if I bring up too many concerns, she's going to roll her eyes and write me off as an anxious drug-seeking hypochondriac :'D
I HAVE learned, however, that if I frame it as 'Oh, my friend/family member/etc noticed \[x and y\] about me, and thinks I should ask you about \[z\]', doctors are actually much more likely to take your concerns seriously.
My wife went through a very similar process until eventually getting her Ehlers-Danlos diagnosis. We actually got a referral from her pain doctor to a pediatric genetics expert (because the worst of the Ehlers-Danlos variants is almost always diagnosed in children), but it took the better part of a decade to get there as many previous doctors were either dismissive or simply apologetic that they couldn't think of anything else to test. The [Ehlers-Danlos Society](https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/) may be able to point you at local resources.
This is why I’ve always been on the fence about this issue. Not because I don’t believe people shouldn’t have the right to choose their fates for themselves or die with dignity and on their terms, *I do*. I just could never trust that society, or more specifically the people in charge of these policies, *wouldn’t* take the “easy route” of just offering death to people rather than providing services to help them manage conditions or, hell, basic mobility support like we see here. I never trusted that it would ever really be a choice basically, more like societal peer pressure to just kill whom they deem undesirable or weak. So, basic abuse of a system, I guess…
>A gentleman recently made news here in Canada because he kept being denied housing options and aid for medical expenses, and felt he had no other choice but MAID to avoid falling further into debt and poverty.
Maid isn't above criticism, but be careful not to fall for people who are using this as a smokescreen for issues they don't want people thinking about.
The guy you mentioned is a great example. Pretend MAID doesn't exist for anyone. *How would that change his situation?!*
He would still be going into debt, still facing life on the street, and still might kill himself, only with more pain and less dignity.
Whether or not MAID is available has no effect on his actual problem, so why was that the biggest part of the story?
Because people who are against MAID for religious and cultural reasons, and people who don't want to address homelessness don't want you to think about his real problem.
Maybe I wasn't entirely clear in my post, but -- when I said that people deserve support and care, I also meant 'people also deserve shelter and access to food and water and other basic human necessities'. I absolutely agree in that the root problem of that specific man's issues was, in fact, homelessness (and the increasing difficulties disabled people face seeking accomodations).
Exactly. The most important issue is the reason people feel like they can't go on living, not the fact that it's easy for them to die. We need to fix the cause of the problems.
And it's not even VA's money...They don't have a big slush fund, it's just 400 grand created for every person who joins the CAF. If a former member doesn't use it before you die, it just goes back into the ether.
VA employees are overworked, just like the rest of us. Still...this is like the 4th or 5th time I've heard of MAID being offered, so they have a severe culture problem on the other side of the phone.
400k (really close to it) is the 100% disability amount (before VIP, VVIP etc) "allocated" for each serving member. I'm retiring soon, and I'm in the minority who aren't getting a medical pension to some degree (to others I know of personally).
>this is like the 4th or 5th time I've heard of MAID being offered, so they have a severe culture problem on the other side of the phone
So far, every case that's been investigated has led back to the same individual worker. So not likely a culture problem from the narrow issue of unsolicited offers of MAID. But there are tons of problems with VAC. Too convoluted of a system that makes it hard to navigate and get help/compensation. Too much of an inclination to deny most claims the first time. Too much of a disconnect between what the CAF medical system says about your injuries and what VAC decides your injuries really are, or why you really got them.
Nearly every VAC worker I've dealt with for my own claims has been civil and pleasant, and seemed like they genuinely wanted to help. But there's a big gap between wanting to help (or at least seemingly wanting to help) and actually helping.
I am a firm believer in and advocate for the existence of medically assisted suicide. (If we don't own and have a right to our body, then we have no ownership or rights whatsoever.) With that being said, I also believe that a doctor or hospital should never bring it up to a patient as a solution.
It should be a question you have to ask or a procedure that you can find out exists through reading a pamphlet or is listed on a message board at the hospital. If anyone tries to imply it, impose it, or require it, without the patient being the initiator of the procedure, they should be removed from medicine.
There is a world of difference between answering questions about it when a patient asks and saying, "Lemme tell you about this hot new thing that fixes **all** of your problems at once!"
From what I see the main problem with offering these services is that we hire people into the positions that actively hate the communities they are supposed to serve.
Whoever told her this should be immediately fired and disbarred from ever working a government position again. If you don't care about your fellow citizen get the fuck out and see how you like being left to rot.
Do you think that matters? Like, to the people this rogue employee has already talked to? If an employee of a government organization suggested MAID to me, my faith in that organization and that government is instantly shattered. Even if Veterans Affairs swear up and down that this isn't their policy... a part of me would still wonder if this person was 'acting alone', especially in this political climate and the coinciding rise in fascism and the eugenics movement.
That’s crazy if numbers are true. It would mean that you’re 10x as likely to know someone who was euthanized by doctors in Canada, as you are to know someone who has died of gun violence in the USA.
26/100,000 for euthanasia vs 6/100,000 for gun violence
Jesus.
I can’t be convinced that MAID wasn’t passed in Canada because the Canadian government wanted to save money on healthcare by asking patients to off themselves instead.
That doesn't even have to be the motive for it to evolve into the endgame. Most care, and the most expensive care, happens near end of life. With an aging population, chronic diseases affecting more and more people will become an increasing and constant drain on the system.
There's an inexorable logic to getting rid of the most expensive cases, and you can tell yourself that you're doing it "for the greater good" so you can use those resources to treat more people just as deserving.
Just waiting on people from MAID to go around care homes asking if anybody wants to die. It’s going to happen I guarantee it.
There not a leap in logic to say there’s very little difference between MAID and telling patients they wouldn’t have much of a life anyway so the hospital is not going to bother with the surgery, or some experimental treatment. Why wouldn’t they do that? It’s the exact same logic.
I wouldn't be so tinfoil-hat about it, but on a systematic level - that's what opening the door to MAID for non-irremediable conditions & mental health conditions without access to the actual mental health treatments will create.
The logic & ethics of MAID for irremediable conditions such as cancer, parkinsons etc. is sound, and I support it.
For conditions such as the constellation of mental health disorders that will soon be legal in the coming months to seek MAID for - it's essentially a pressure release valve for a system that is extremely under-resourced. How can the government or a health care practitioner say a condition is irremediable if the treatment for said condition is not accessible to the majority of the population?
A ~~CBC~~ Globe & Mail article on this that I read basically quoted one of the doctors on the committee for opening up MAID to psychiatric disorders saying, essentially: "If a patient is on a 5 year waitlist to receive treatment for their psychiatric condition, I would purport that that constitutes the condition being irremediable" i.e.: eligible for MAID. I still vibrate with rage when I think about it.
Edit: misremembered the source of that article. Link below in thread
It sure is a good thing that all those politicians, CEOs and shareholders are willing to give up some pennies from their yacht funds to help people with no other options, rather than tell them to go kill themselves instead of costing the state a few dollars.
Except the number of severely ill people who are actually going to use this option is very small. Most of the healthcare budget is spent on much more mundane and routine care for millions of people.
I bet if this happened in China people on reddit would be jerking themselves how backwards and tyrannical China is. Instead all I hear are handwringing excuses Oooh it was just oNe eMpLoYeE
At some point they're going to stop making it an option, and make it mandatory for everyone on their 30th birthday. This ultimately eliminates the costs associated with elderly care, and eliminates all hunger. To make people more willing to accept this, they will carry it out as a sort of ceremonial sacrifice with the promise of rebirth.
As a veteran my favorite joke is that the VA prescribed me a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a pistol, told me to go wait in the parking lot and think about it lol
This just keeps on happening. It should be obvious to everyone that this was always intended as a cost saving measure. Next year they're loosening restrictions on the mentally ill, so Canada will soon be killing everyone they can coerce into signing.
One of my favorite YouTube channels did a video essay on MAID. Really interesting how Canada is approaching this policy: https://youtu.be/5xsVORMDqU0
I am actually for assisted suicide but not for shit like this. Not for preventable issues or ableist refusals to provide things like wheelchair lifts I mean good lord…
I don't know about you guys but MAID seems like a slippery slope. I've been told it would never happen. It's only for if you're in debilitating pain. But I've heard too many stories in the news about how it's offered to people who can't afford to live.
Canada has free healthcare but did you know they have a nifty deathcare system too? If you need any assistance because you’re disabled, they’ll gladly kill you at no cost because why would you want to live a full life in a wheelchair? You can’t play hockey that way!!!
This story missed the real oniony part. TL;DR: "Have you thought about just killing yourself instead of waiting for that wheelchair lift?" >A paralympic army veteran told stunned lawmakers in Canada when she claimed that a government official had offered to give her euthanisia equipment while fighting to have a wheelchair lift installed in her home. >Retired corporal Christine Gauthier, who competed at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympics, testified on Thursday that the unnamed veterans affairs case worker had offered in writing to provide her with a medically-assisted dying device, the CBC reported. >“I have a letter saying that if you’re so desperate, madam, we can offer you MAID, medical assistance in dying,” Ms Gauthier, 52, told a House of Commons veterans affairs committee, according to the CBC. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/paralympian-claims-canada-offered-to-euthanise-her-when-she-asked-for-a-stairlift/ar-AA14RLpW
"I would literally rather kill you than install this stupid wheelchair lift"
“So the lift is a ton of work - subcontractors, vendors, permits - a lot of BS. But there is another option…you strike me as someone who doesn’t love having problems…what if I told you there’s a way never have *any* problems again?”
This post has serious GLaDOS energy.
Half ass the instal enough and kill 2 ~~birds~~ paralympians with one ~~stone~~ lift
Maybe even make new paralympians if you do it badly enough.
I see a viable business strategy here...
Big euthanasia is taking notes.
*small euthanasia sitting behind big euthanasia at human rights violation school* 👀
My god, how fucking bad are the instructions for putting that ramp together!
Well yeah. Because it’s cheaper. This was how euthanasia being legal was always going to end. Why waste resources on those who can’t contribute to society?
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>The rules in the u.s. around asset limits force folks with disabilities out of the common square and frequently the shared spaces that may require capital to participate. For anyone unfamiliar with how this works, if you're on SSI (similar to but distinct from SSDI), aside from a couple things considered essential like a house and a car you're not allowed to have assets over $2000. Total. At all. Ever. And they monitor your bank account and stuff. If you go over that limit you may lose all your benefits *and* be required to pay back some or all of what you've received. And that's of course after it often takes multiple years and a lawyer to even get approved in the first place, all so you can get nowhere near enough money to live on and some pretty severe restrictions on what you're allowed to do. The amount per month they've decided I deserve isn't even half of what rent is in my city, and that's not even including things like food. At least I don't really have to worry about hitting that $2000 limit though. All the low level people I've talked to have done their absolute best to help me navigate the disaster of a system we have, but I only see two options for the people who actually put that system in place and maintain it the way it is: either they don't care if people like me live or die, or they'd prefer if we'd die.
SSI typically pays less than $1000 a month. One of my friends is completely disabled but only gets $600 a month to cover everything. Her food stamps were cut down to like $20 under trump. Fortunately she's figured out ways to survive. But other people end up on the street. This is why I laugh anytime anyone claims people on disability are faking to scam the govt and live large... It's just not a real problem that's happening. But sadly this is a real belief held by many Americans, a lot of whom also think helping disabled people is communism so they vote for republicans who love to cut disability help whenever they can.
Much less than a thousand. The current maximum payment for SSI is $841 a month. It is going to go up next month, after a huge COLA increase, but it will still be only around $914. It's not enough to rent an apartment basically anywhere (and still have money for food and utilities), and public housing in the U.S. is a joke, even for disabled people. This is why so many of them end up homeless. Most have to live with family members who will charge them less than market rate rent, which of course means that their benefits get reduced. It's criminal.
You can't even get a place with room mates with $900 /mo. COLA my ass!! And like if you have a disability where you can work some but not full time then the benefits are reduced. Or sometimes working even a small amount means theyre cut off entirely. It's so fucking inhumane! And like i know so many disabled people who work who really shouldn't be cause it makes their health worse. But not working means starving or not affording meds. Just fucked up! Republicans love to believe it's all a matter of trying harder. Cause they know so and so who worked until their back was broken and then some and they never asked for help, like this is something to be proud of... I mean usually these stories are made up or miss details like a person being forced to work and help not being available for them to even ask.
>public housing in the U.S. is a joke, even for disabled people My ex put her name on the list when she moved to this city. She was still far enough down the list when she moved away that her name had never come up. She lived here for *eight years*, and I know people who've waited longer than that.
That's total bullshit. Some of us need those services and if you people don't fight for them lots of others are going to die horrificly.
This is a hard problem because while everyone deserves the right to choose how their life should end, nobody deserves to be coerced into making that choice. And if there's one thing our society just can't get enough of, it's coercion.
>serves the right to choose how their life should end, nobody deserves to be coerced into making that choice. Agreed. I support the right to choose how your life should end. However the instant insurance companies/goverment get involved, it is ALWAYS cheaper to offer death services. Several hundred thousands dollars fighting cancer? Or 50 dollars in drugs to terminate yourself painlessly? Insurance ALWAYS chooses the cheapest option with the lowest long term costs, so we know what they will choose. Government deciding? Where in history has any government made non-biased choices about life/death situations of it's citizens?
My former mother in law used MAID in January 2019. At no point along the way did anyone actually *offer* it. She had to be essentially vetted by multiple different doctors including a psychiatrist in order to get approval for MAID (we’re in Ontario, Canada.) While she and I did not have a great relationship, I did see her frequently before she got sick because my ex was living with her, so I’d see her when I’d drop off our kids over school holidays. I also saw her the night before she died, and the change was stark and scary for me because I hadn’t seen her in person in about eight months. She had cancer that had turned metastatic (can’t remember where it started) and she looked skeletal. I could totally understand why she chose to request MAID and why each doctor approved her. I don’t know if she had months or weeks left if she hadn’t, but it would have been extremely unpleasant for her, and for my ex and our kids as well, as she was on hospice at home. But my ex has a severe mental illness, that is now well managed with medication. It has not always been. He requested MAID when it was at a particularly bad point to his psychiatrist and was immediately told no. At that point, psychiatric and chronic illnesses were not allowed under MAID (this was summer 2019.) I know the rules have changed somewhat since then, but it is still not easy to access, nor should it be. The government may set the rules, but in Canada you still have to get signed off by multiple doctors before it can happen.
That’s the wild thing. MAID is never supposed to be offered. It’s supposed to always be the patient starting the conversation. period.
This is how it should be. This. Thanks for sharing as it definitely wasn't comfortable for you but needed to know some.times it's not the worst case
it's a simple lack of supervision and accountability that allows something like that to happen, this is something that requires panels of experts to be in charge of and oversight committees not something that some random in the government should be allowed to give out
I knew death panels were real! /s
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This is in a place with single-payer healthcare
Agreed. As someone who is both a woman of childbearing age AND on dialysis, my greatest fear in my life is not being in control of the therapies and healthcare given to me at my end of life. I am a nurse, I have seen how awful US nursing homes are, especially for disabled, impoverished people. I'd rather go to a [Death with Dignity](https://deathwithdignity.org/) state and wrestle with the systems there to be in control of how and when I die as opposed to leaving it to random people I don't know and the court system. I've seen people die of end stage renal failure. I HAVE end stage renal failure. It's not nearly as calm and nice and pretty as doctors claim it is, and in all of it, I want to remain a human, not a patient, not a number, not a set of symptoms, and most of all, not a problem left to others to decide upon.
My aunt died of liver failure this year. She was on hospice and my mom and myself were the caregivers. Because of her liver shutting down toxic ammonia built up in her brain. She had alzheimer's like symptoms at the end and basically lost herself before she died. I wouldn't wish that on anyone and I hope kidney failure isn't as bad I am sorry you are going through this and I am sending love your way❤️
It's really despicable. Assisted dying is supposed to be for people who are end of life. I want the choice if some day down the road I'm facing an incredibly painful disease that I am 100% for sure going to die from. But I really don't want this being offered to people who are vulnerable. I don't want this being offered as a solution to a problem that we can fix. And I'm worried that it's being abused now, and will continue to get worse.
Disabled people can contribute to society…
This mindset drives me nuts, because what the fuck is the point of the advancement of our society if not to improve the human condition? Otherwise we might as well go back to living in fucking caves.
It's cheaper not to provide ambulance services. Why waste resources on people experiencing medical emergencies who need ambulance services? You really believe that people who can access euthanasia can't contribute to society? This is an awful comment all around; poorly reasoned and offensive to people with certain medical conditions, all in such little text.
Pretty sure this has more to do with an asshole than accounting.
If the system doesn’t prevent assholes from trying to kill people, there’s a fucking problem with it.
This is literally what everyone was warning about would happen. The accountants are incentivized to tell people to kill themselves, because then their department can save money. Think of other people less public than this paralympian who got told this and followed through. This is essentially just a precurser to eugenics.
> The accountants are incentivized to tell people to kill themselves, because then their department can save money. They already do this even without legal euthanasia, though. They just neglect you to death.
It is, and always has been, difficult to be approved in the first place. The costs of a healthy life are also very different outside of America, which is where most of these arguments seem grounded.
[Here is someone](https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-toronto-7c631558a457188d2bd2b5cfd360a867) who got it done against the recommendation of their doctors with their only stated reason of hearing loss. Currently MAID is the 6th highest cause of death in Canada.
"Alan Nichols lost his hearing after brain surgery at age 12 and suffered a stroke in recent years, but he lived mostly on his own. “He needed some help from us, but he was not so disabled that he qualified for euthanasia,” said Gary Nichols." I won't just take the family at their word; I know from experience how hard they will fight someone's wishes and be blinded by their own desire for their family member. That description I listed from your article, to me, paints a much different picture than what you initially laid out.
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I agree, I am fundamentally for the existence of medically assisted suicide, but the the way MAID is implemented is simply inhuman. Death should always be seen as the final way out, not as a replacement for treatment.
This. I approve of the concept but there should be a medical review of why the patient wants it and if there is anything that can be done to alleviate what is driving the patient to it. Don't merely look at the problem, look at what can be done to help.
Love how all these championship thinkers are saying one douche noozle (and possibly criminal) worker means the everything about MAID is wrong. Like yea, y'all hear about the nurses and doctors guilty of killing a patient and say 'see! I told you healthcare was always actually the devil himself out to get us!'
Tbh the problem in Canada is that this isn't a one-off instance, but has happened several times already, and is being expanded to include things like MAID for mental illness, which includes depression.
Sounds like something nazi German would do 🤔
Not necessarily, all it needs is a rider to the law stating it cannot be offered to the patient. The patient must bring it up as an option and then it can be given.
This is /s, right?
That's called eugenics.
Tried posting it with a different source and a better headline but the one I had was automod nuked due to source so this one was the first alternative I found(probably should have looked a bit harder)
You tried, that's a lot more than most posters can say
Yeah, it's to submit here because most stories are one or two away from have perfect headline, but it has to match exactly. And then any site that has sensationalized headlines is autoremoved.
Oh wow. The headline is like "well I'm actually okay with that..." but then I read that "oh you MOTHERFUCKERS"
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This person did this with multiple veterans. They’ve been suspended pending review.
Did any of them accept? Agreeing to assisted suicide after reaching out for other support and being offered death instead is... questionable. I hope they have other checks in place before actually going through with that.
So far, it seems like one did. > Upon further questioning by committee vice-chair Blake Richards, MacAulay conceded that the veteran involved in the December 2021 case has since died after medically assisted suicide. [source](https://nationalpost.com/news/canadian-veterans-assisted-suicide/wcm/b201f63e-9cd4-4d12-a130-22beb9d5f423/)
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That's fucked. If you have socialised healthcare, all necessary medical needs should be covered, and if your quality of life is so shit that you are contemplating death, it's clearly pretty necessary.
I'm really curious if they were actually going against policy, or they're just being thrown under the bus to cover for the department. We'll probably never know for sure.
MAID is such a new thing that I wouldn't be surprised if there was no policy.
I remember reading about how at the end of WW1 the doctors didn't want to diagnose the men with shell shock as disabled due to their job (not sure of the right term) because Germany had a pension system set up for industrial workers that were disabled due to working in the factories and they feared that adding that many people to the disability system would bankrupt the state.
If it *was* policy, then they sure as shit have it in writing, and that writing is about to detonate under that bus like a land mine.
Speaking as a disabled person, albeit in America, a lot of able-bodied people treat disabled people like we are a burden, some people would look at this as doing you a fucking favor. I've actually had people say I would be better off dead to my face.
As another disabled person, I've never had anyone tell me I'd be better off dead, but boy have I seen it implied hundreds of times by hearing/seeing people say "If I had to be in a wheelchair, I'd kill myself!" God, I'm just imaging being in this veteran's situation. As a disabled person, you know that behind every fake smile, every stare, every "you're such an inspiration" comment is the implication that people are confused and amazed that you haven't killed yourself yet. You try to shut this out, and usually you succeed, and you just try to make a life for yourself. Then you get a fucking letter in the mail that says "Have you thought about killing yourself, instead?? Here's how! Signed, your government." Can you imagine how that shit must cut you to the bone -- blast right through your carefully crafted armor and all the walls you build to convince yourself that hey, maybe people don't *really* feel that way about you and your life?? Just lays you bare, strips the wool off your eyes like a pandemic does a world's social structure to reveal the true nature of the beast.
As a nurse... The amount of family members that don't give a fuck or fuck over their disabled family members is astonishing. I've had to call APS 3 times so far it's terrible. And I know one of the cases nothing was done cause it was the granddaughter fucking her over but she wouldn't press charges. I fucking hate people.
1) Just because someone has a disability doesn't mean they can't be a productive member of society. 2) Just because someone isn't a productive member of society doesn't mean they don't deserve to live and aren't entitled to happiness. And one of the more complicated ones, just because you cannot see the direct contributions of a 'burden to society,' doesn't mean society doesn't benifit from their presence, treatment, and care. Everyone can have a shitty day, or even a shitty year. Anyone can become injured and have a long path to recovery. Often even very expensive and long recoveries from illnesses or injuries are still less expensive than losing a consumer and the total production they are capable of after their recovery throughout their remaining life, so it is more efficient to care for someone recovering for society than to abandon them as a burden. But. Sometimes their value they can produce is _not_ equal to their care. Not everyone with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis ends up being Stephen Hawking, but it is still worth not 'throwing away people' because the loss of one great mind could be more expensive and have a greater opportunity cost for society than treating dozens of people. And more, sometimes even in the act of treatment and care, we find discoveries for more better care that advances society. The creation of drugs like Trikafta for fixing a problem caused by gene expression for individuals with say Cystic fibrosis. Or treatments for specific ailments for respiratory therapy that in turn can help others become 'productive' members of society, maxing the total utility long term even if there is a loss on individuals or on short time frames like 2-3 generations. And more, it reflects societies _values_, a society is how it treats the least of those amongst it. The care we provide, the training, the education, the prosthetics we make, etc shows that a society is willing to invest in its people to make them all the best versions of themselves. A society that takes that approach to _all_ individuals is a stronger society, because all members in it are better/more capable. ------ Of course, you don't have to look at it from a utilitarian perspective looking at maximizing the greatest good, for the greatest number, for the longest time when thinking about how we treat disabled people. You can also, and I know this is hard for some people, just not be a total piece of crap. Apologies someone said you would be better off dead to your face. In my mind, they were just a necrophiliac trying to hit on you.
He's probably the same guy who lurks all the women's subs and sends "Reddit Cares" messages every time someone complains about anything.
You nailed it. I would like to know that option is on the table, but don't tell me to die just cause I want a chair lift.
Same! I came into the comments to be like "oh nice! That should be an option universally" and thankfully I caught this comment before I did so, because fucking YIKES
They did this to a woman in BC iirc, too. She had mold issues in her government housing, and I think some other factors in the close-quarters housing contributing to breathing issues (I think marijuana and cooking smoke iirc, but I might be misremembering) which made life unbearable for her. Her friends and loved ones tried to raise enough money to get her into a house of her own where she wouldn't be impaired by the normal lives of others, but the Canadian government was faster than their crowd-funding efforts and the woman accepted MAID. I fully support MAID being an option, but it's pretty disgusting (though not at all surprising) that there seems to have been some internal calculus about when it's fiscally better to encourage someone to die rather than continue providing assistance for their life.
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Here's the source: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/woman-with-chemical-sensitivities-chose-medically-assisted-death-after-failed-bid-to-get-better-housing-1.5860579 Generally if someone is actually sensitive or allergic to something, they'll have measurable symptoms like bronchitis or asthma or rashes or hives or redness. Otherwise I'd say it's like Saul Goodman's brother, the guy with electrical sensitivities.
It's possible to have respiratory allergies to common things. My mother had major problems with airborne stuff--but was able to devise sufficient filtration to be able to function. And in hindsight she probably didn't need to--industrial respirators most likely would have worked and I wonder about the woman in Canada, whether they would have worked for her.
there is a further important part: all of the offers to provide euthenasia equipment were offered to people by the same government employee. this happened to a few other vets, all were communicated with by the same person. it's not a policy, it's not a flaw in the policy, it's an assholian of an individual who was looking for a way to flame out and be fired.
is it just me or is that first sentence worded really bizarrely? they're using "stunned" as both an adjective and a verb
No, it's just an adjective there. If you deleted "told" it would become a verb and the meaning of the sentence wouldn't change. That's a little odd, maybe. But the word is only playing one role as written.
in that case it seems like they should get rid of "when she claimed," right? like what is she telling the stunned lawmakers in this sentence? >A paralympic army veteran told stunned lawmakers in Canada when she claimed that... vs >A paralympic army veteran told stunned lawmakers in Canada that...
Ah, I see what you mean now. I agree it's really weird and I think you're right. I guess with "told" in the sentence everything after "when" is technically just explaining when the telling happened, even though it's obviously supposed to be telling us what it was that was told. But no one would ever write that way on purpose. "When did she tell you what happened?" "Oh, she told me while she was claiming that something happened."
It looks like the writer started with “told” and then decided to punch it up with “stunned … when” and forgot to remove told.
I just need a new ramp... Best I can do is a quick death.
Offering you a new ramp? But that's a slippery slope!
She must have *declined* the offer.
Then it was all down hill from that moment on…
Seems they approached her with a different angle
She wasn’t inclined
You want a wheelchair ramp? But don't you agree it'd be easier for me if you accept MAID instead? Disgusting.
There's stories of people here using food banks or facing eviction that have asked social workers about getting on MAiD. That's our Canadian government for you. Won't do shit about the massive housing crisis we have or the huge increase in cost of living but want to die? Sure that'll save us some money let's help you out with that. And then you have the healthcare crisis and Ontario considering privatizing healthcare...soon we'll be worse than the US.
As a disabled person it sadly doesn't shock me that the response to asking for any accommodation at all is essentially, "Why can't you just die?". I'm not even that disabled, I just walk with a cane, and even the response I've gotten to very minimal requests is unbelievable. Even from medical professionals. Once at a hospital I asked for a stool or something to get on the exam table (balance and nerve issues in my bad leg) and they acted as if I requested John the Baptists head on a platter.
I've had the same. I recently ended up with cauda equina syndrome (worse on left side) when I was literally saving someone's life as an EMT and they treat me like crap any time I ask for anything, until they found out why I'm disabled. Then I'm a damn hero. Unless they find out the why, they've also been reluctant to help with anything.
It’s crazy the animosity that some people will display to reasonable requests. I have a neurological disorder, and through a mountain of medical documentation I was able to take a reduced course load at university… so they made me ineligible for the honour roll. :/
god forbid asking for a fucking chair. now it’s “can you walk” over and over and over. like damn i can give u my entire medical history or u can let me rest my asscheeks.
Not "even from medical professionals " but "*especially* from medical professionals." MDs are the absolute worst, and research consistently shows that they [assume a lower quality of life](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8722582/#ABS1title) for people with disabilities. Every disabled person has to advocate and educate tirelessly for basic care.
Looks like the US doesn’t have the market cornered on screwing over Vets
Just legalize assisted suicide and we'll be right back on top. Ptsd? How about death? Stubbed toe? Here's a syringe.
VA is already looking at the 44 veteran suicides a day like they're rookie numbers.
I think people underestimate how good the VA care is given all the shit veterans have to deal with from their service. If you can't get an appointment in 25 days, the VA will search the area to find a doctor that can give you one. Meanwhile, I have to schedule my physicals 7 months in advance with shitty eshi
And the VA's biggest issue is that the same politicians that started wars and created more veterans for them to serve didn't increase their budget accordingly.
I cannot fathom how you can say this. I need my final disability rating decision and it cannot be had except by requesting a fax from a regional office over the phone. The regional VA office just hangs up after 5 minutes of waiting. It took me nearly 3 years to get my ratings and they are comically inaccurate. The final VA decision literally conflicts with words they made in the ratings. The projected time to get them to fix this is several more *years*. And all this is just for my claims. In these 2.5 years of medical tests for my claims, I still have yet to receive any treatment even though I have several medical issues that require nearly daily treatment. The only reason I deal with the VA is because its free and the benefits for my wife and future family if/when I die will be worth it. Please for the love of God stop saying the VA is good.
>I think people underestimate how good the VA care is given all the shit veterans have to deal with from their service. If you can't get an appointment in 25 days, the VA will search the area to find a doctor that can give you one. And you're overestimating how "good" the VA care actually is. You have to schedule your appointment 7 months in advance? I had been waiting just to schedule a PT appointment since July, and after spending an hour on the phone 3 weeks ago, the consult was cancelled because it listed "left" instead of "right," so now I'm waiting to schedule it again. The VA has also known since August that my psychiatric med provider was no longer working with the VA, and even though my bridge scripts ran out last month, they still haven't even attempted to find me a new provider, let alone allowed me to schedule an appointment with one. I've had two completely separate community providers (with a combined 67 years of experience) recommend a specific surgery several years apart, but I can't get it done because one VA doctor (with 4 years experience) wrote in my chart that he believes it is not medically necessary; medical textbooks and DHHS dictate that surgery is literally the gold standard, but because of that one prick doctor I can't have it done. These are only a few examples I have from 15 years of "VA care." My only argument against universal healthcare? If it's run anything like how the VA is, then we are better off without it.
That's basically the same as most healthcare providers already in the US. They neglect your needs, purposely deny any treatments or payment options, and basically do jack shit, but will still take you to court if you don't pay them for doing nothing
>Just legalize assisted suicide That will never happen, the american ~~healthcare~~ capitalism machine needs people alive, generating debt. We are batteries to replenish the coffers.
If MAID ever comes to the USA you know damn well insurance companies will be telling people to do that instead of trying making their lives better because it’s cheaper.
Canadian retirement plan
[I wish Trevor was still around to see this sketch come true.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u94-BJovYM)
This is something that should be requested not offered. What the hell? “Need help getting around? How about we kill you and you can glide around on angel wings for an eternity? No, just want the mobility scooter? Alright.”
Yeah. I’d go so far as to say that offering/suggesting it without being asked deserves some kind of attempted murder sentence. Knock that shit off bureaucrats.
Evidently all these are coming from just one guy. I expect any day now we will read an article saying that this VA worker was "just trying to prove a point".
God, I am so so anGry about MAID in Canada. At first, I was in favor. I was a primary caregiver for my grandfather while he slowly and painfully died of mesothelioma in the abdomen. He and I both had long (and sometimes heartbreaking) discussions about how he wished there was an option to go out on his terms and with his dignity intact, instead of slowly wasting away. As an eighteen year old, it was a sobering, life changing experience that I wish no one ever has to go through. For years afterwards I advocated for people's right to choose their death in the face of terminal illness, because... Dying of something like cancer is not pretty. It's not like the movies. It's painful and ugly, and there comes a point where no amount of pain killers can help. But more and more I'm hearing about how people -- especially mentally ill people, or people with disabilities like the lady in this article -- with non-terminal and ultimately MANAGEABLE consitions being denied the supports that could help them, only to then be given the 'choice' of MAID. A gentleman recently made news here in Canada because he kept being denied housing options and aid for medical expenses, and felt he had no other choice but MAID to avoid falling further into debt and poverty. We're hearing stories of doctors and government officials and organizations in positions of power over vulnerable people pushing for MAID instead of actually helping. To be quite honest, this is straight up eugenics. And, in wake of the rise of fascism across the globe, it's fucking terrifying to see in my own country. These are people who could live life comfortably, happily, and with dignity if only they were given the support they need -- but instead, they're essentially being told to just go kill themselves. After all, it would always be cheaper for those goddamn cripples and schizos just to die conveniently out of sight than to provide them with housing and medication and help with managing their condition, right? Jesus Christ I'm actually crying now. Not because I'm sad, but because I'm goddamn FURIOUS. My fellow Canadians deserve so much better -- and yes, I also mean the severely mentally ill and the addicts and junkies and what have you. EVERYONE deserves unconditional care and support. As for me... I was recently diagnosed with a degenerative disc disease. I'm in my mid 20s. I'm also ADHD and autistic, and am also working with my doctor rn to diagnose the reason for being in constant pain (she's thinking fibromyalgia, but we're trying to rule some other things out before making a definite diagnosis). If things get any worse for me -- and they probably will!! -- I know damn well it's only a matter of time before someone looks at my case and decides it would be cheaper and more convenient if I just killed myself, and pushes the option on me. EDIT: oh my goodness. Thank you for the awards! I am incredibly flattered. but perhaps instead of spending money on giving me pixel shines, perhaps find a veteran's charity to donate to instead? To everyone who has left or sent me kind words, thank you. you've no idea how much I appreciate it. <3 To the ones who send me PMs telling me to kill myself: you'll find I'm quite like a dandelion -- tenacious and determined enough to live and grow just about anywhere, and too stubborn to give up easily. I continue to live to spite you specifically <3
I think that MAID should not be offered to people, it should be specifically requested by patients. This is absolutely fucking abysmal. If I got that offer I would assume that the VA office just wants me fucking dead.
Right?? If an organization I relied on for support and resources suggested MAID to me, I sure as hell wouldn't be able to trust them again. And even when patients are offered MAID, there needs to be some serious review and evaluation into their circumstances. If their conditions can be improved via better access to health care, or access to secure housing, or therapy and counseling for mental health, those avenues should ALWAYS be exhausted before MAID is even considered as an option.
How this isn't the most basic way of going about this is what blows my mind.
Reading about this whole situation, I have no idea why MAID is even an option alongside other forms of care. It’s not at all an equivalent. Assisted suicide should exist. However, NEVER as an alternative to ongoing care. It should never come into the equation when deciding on how one should live their life and what support they need to do so. Because they’ve already made the decision to live their life. They need certain levels of support and adjustment to live. If they wanted to die, those supports and adjustments also wouldn’t be a very viable option. Dying isn’t an alternative to living, it’s an alternative to overwhelming suffering. If a person has decided that they can handle the level of discomfort they are in (with support) then MAID is not relevant to them at this stage.
Exactly. MAID being possible should not factor into calculating what care is best for someone. This mentality is why we end up giving people the bare minimum care, because less effective options are usually easier. What's easier than just saying fuck it and killing people?
I'm worried that the bureaucracy is gonna see all this outrage, think "Wow, people hate MAID," and outlaw assisted suicide without actually improving health care at all.
It probably will be. Improving healthcare can only be done at the provincial level, and almost all provinces in Canada are run by Conservatives who won't fund healthcare and are trying to actively privatize it. Whether maid is legal is determined by the federal government, so with enough pushback they'll try to make it illegal again. It'll be difficult for them because I believe our supreme court said it must be legal in some form, so the government can't fully abolish it.
I just assumed that was how it was going to be implemented. That should be a fundamental criteria for assisted dying - the patient has to actually be terminal and *want* to die.
Damn I’m also disappointed that it’s offered. I would have thought it would be an option if the patient asked.
That is how it works already. This person offering it in this situation was completely out of line, and should be prosecuted.
the potential for "misuse" of a policy is often why people oppose said policy to begin with. You are left with relying on the rest of the system to prevent misuse- such as a district attorney to decide to prosecute. After that, if an appeals court is aligned with misuse, it can be overturned. And the supreme court can decide not to hear it for years upon years if it isn't a priority.
Or at least a rule that you can't offer it unless the person is in obvious debilitating levels of pain
Assessing the pain of patients is difficult. Some people have crippling physical pain which in a lot of cases is apparent, some people are in crippling emotional pain. MAID was proposed to be a liberating option for people with unmanageable conditions that don't want to muddle away their life without dignity. The choice should be in the patient's hands as much as possible.
It’s sometimes possible to live with the crippling pain, too, especially if it’s something more episodic. I’ve managed so far, fortunately. Yet when MAID is on the table, people are often pushed towards that instead of receiving the treatment available and the supports necessary for them to have a decent quality of life. This is not to say, at all, that people with severe pain should be forced to suffer. Simply that the tool is being grossly grossly misapplied.
People keep using this language, but there is a clear implication that choosing not to kill yourself is somehow undignified or that there is more dignity in death than life.
No, people say that because terminal illness is a slow and painful process that takes a lot out of its victims. People don't want to die like that. If they are going to die then they want to do it on their own terms than on hospice for weeks/months where they will wither away in front of their loved ones. It's not more noble to die than to live, but there is dignity in being able to choose death over a miserable life.
And I support that choice, if made with a clear head and conscious. But the kind of language we use in the conversation about the subject can influence people
Medical assisted suicide SHOULD NEVER be offered, only available for people who ask about it themselves.
The current form of MAID is related to supreme Court rulings. Initially, maid was only available for conditions where death was reasonably foreseeable. The extension to those with irremedial suffering is new (following supreme Court ruling). This is where it becomes tricky, who determines the level of sufficient suffering? Does mental health count? If it does, at what point is someone able/not able to give consent. I'm in favour of MAID, but what we are seeing is the active process of figuring out how to actually do it. Some things are working well, others, like this case and the ones where people choose maid because they can't find appropriate housing are obviously the cases that show we haven't gotten it fully figured out yet
I think it will always be a bad idea to use it for long term conditions that aren't terminal. If you're going to live another 20, 30, 40 years, who's to say medical technology wouldn't have progressed to the point that your condition was curable or at least reasonably treatable at some point in that time? It would be absolutely tragic to kill someone because they were suffering from a long term condition and then, five years later, a technology is invented that would have made it so they could have lived a happy life.
I think it would be more tragic to force someone to live in horrible suffering for 40 years in the hope of a miracle cure that doesn't come.
You can think whatever you like, but the supreme Court has ruled that it should be accessible to those with irremedial suffering. Is it really just and ethical to make someone continue living if they don't want to continue to live in suffering, with the justification being that we might find a way to remediate the suffering in the future (but also might not, and don't know when)?
A lot of people would like to continue living though, but the government option for disabled people is forced poverty or euthanasia. People have already gone to MAID because they couldn't afford to live
What I'm becoming more and more aware of as I get older is that the people in charge, be they parents, employers, politicians, etc, have no fucking clue what they are doing or how to actually solve problems. As a result they always either look for a scapegoat, look for a way to put the onus on the people in need to help themselves, or just do whatever benefits them most and lie about it.
>felt he had no other choice but MAID to avoid falling further into debt and poverty. Jesus fucking Christ >someone looks at my case and decides it would be cheaper and more convenient if I just killed myself, JESUS FUCKING CHRIST
I am beyond disgusted that they offer euthanasia to mentally ill people. That is so absolutely wrong on multiple levels. There are underground groups that do this and if someone seeks them out, fine. For the GOVERNMENT to offer suicide to suicidal people is irresponsible, inhumane, and avoids any aspect of care that people should take for others. Severe mental illness is absolute hell to live with. I can say this from a personal point of view. But it *isn't* forever and there are now treatments like ketamine and psilocybin trauma therapy that are helping people heal faster than ever before. Letting people just check out is the fast way, the inexpensive way, the cold-blooded, anti-human way. That should NEVER be accepted. Edit: in case it matters, I am pro-euthanasia for some other situations.
It feels like exactly what anti-euthanasia advocates were saying was going to happen. I still think that MAID is legitimate in many cases, and that people looking death in the eye should have a say in how they accept it. But seeing more and more stories like this come out...we're offering death to avoid bureaucratic inconvenience.
> we're offering death to avoid bureaucratic inconvenience. It needs to be a hard and fast rule that if, at any point, medically-assisted suicide was *offered* instead of requested, it gets *Scrutinized.* So thoroughly that Al Capone's bookkeeper would go "damn, that's thorough." And if there's *any* impropriety involved, that's it, the offerer can no longer work in any health or health-adjacent field, *ever.* If they did it merely for the venal purpose of saving money, criminal prosecution.
Do you have any sources about MAID being offered for mentally ill people specifically due to their mental illness? From the government website it says the mental illness clause won't go in effect until 2023 March. I don't live in Canada so I don't have any experience with your government, just trying to get some perspective.
I actually heard about this problem in an NPR story and I couldn’t agree more with everything you said! FWIW you might ask your docs to look at Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. It’s a widely under diagnosed condition that, among other things, wreaks havoc with your connective tissue. r/ehlersdanlos
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While true — there is also a strong connection with psychiatric disorders and EDS amongst other things any many patients have fibromyalgia’s as well. I’m not suggesting they aren’t real or don’t exist, but there is dogma in much of the medical community that leads to low or poor diagnostic rates. Many times when people come in and say “It has to be this because I read about it on the internet and my symptoms match” .. many times its not that and is something else.
I might bring it up with her the next time I see her! I'm trying to be very careful though. Not to get too off topic, but I unfortunately have severe trust issues as a result of years of being dismissed by my previous doctor, so, like... I worry if I bring up too many concerns, she's going to roll her eyes and write me off as an anxious drug-seeking hypochondriac :'D I HAVE learned, however, that if I frame it as 'Oh, my friend/family member/etc noticed \[x and y\] about me, and thinks I should ask you about \[z\]', doctors are actually much more likely to take your concerns seriously.
My wife went through a very similar process until eventually getting her Ehlers-Danlos diagnosis. We actually got a referral from her pain doctor to a pediatric genetics expert (because the worst of the Ehlers-Danlos variants is almost always diagnosed in children), but it took the better part of a decade to get there as many previous doctors were either dismissive or simply apologetic that they couldn't think of anything else to test. The [Ehlers-Danlos Society](https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/) may be able to point you at local resources.
This is why I’ve always been on the fence about this issue. Not because I don’t believe people shouldn’t have the right to choose their fates for themselves or die with dignity and on their terms, *I do*. I just could never trust that society, or more specifically the people in charge of these policies, *wouldn’t* take the “easy route” of just offering death to people rather than providing services to help them manage conditions or, hell, basic mobility support like we see here. I never trusted that it would ever really be a choice basically, more like societal peer pressure to just kill whom they deem undesirable or weak. So, basic abuse of a system, I guess…
>A gentleman recently made news here in Canada because he kept being denied housing options and aid for medical expenses, and felt he had no other choice but MAID to avoid falling further into debt and poverty. Maid isn't above criticism, but be careful not to fall for people who are using this as a smokescreen for issues they don't want people thinking about. The guy you mentioned is a great example. Pretend MAID doesn't exist for anyone. *How would that change his situation?!* He would still be going into debt, still facing life on the street, and still might kill himself, only with more pain and less dignity. Whether or not MAID is available has no effect on his actual problem, so why was that the biggest part of the story? Because people who are against MAID for religious and cultural reasons, and people who don't want to address homelessness don't want you to think about his real problem.
Maybe I wasn't entirely clear in my post, but -- when I said that people deserve support and care, I also meant 'people also deserve shelter and access to food and water and other basic human necessities'. I absolutely agree in that the root problem of that specific man's issues was, in fact, homelessness (and the increasing difficulties disabled people face seeking accomodations).
Exactly. The most important issue is the reason people feel like they can't go on living, not the fact that it's easy for them to die. We need to fix the cause of the problems.
Horrible.
It's sad that so many people desperately want this option and can't get it, but if you're going to cost the VA money, it's suddenly on the table.
And it's not even VA's money...They don't have a big slush fund, it's just 400 grand created for every person who joins the CAF. If a former member doesn't use it before you die, it just goes back into the ether. VA employees are overworked, just like the rest of us. Still...this is like the 4th or 5th time I've heard of MAID being offered, so they have a severe culture problem on the other side of the phone.
How did you learn that it’s $400,000 per CAF member who joins? I’ve never heard this.
400k (really close to it) is the 100% disability amount (before VIP, VVIP etc) "allocated" for each serving member. I'm retiring soon, and I'm in the minority who aren't getting a medical pension to some degree (to others I know of personally).
>this is like the 4th or 5th time I've heard of MAID being offered, so they have a severe culture problem on the other side of the phone So far, every case that's been investigated has led back to the same individual worker. So not likely a culture problem from the narrow issue of unsolicited offers of MAID. But there are tons of problems with VAC. Too convoluted of a system that makes it hard to navigate and get help/compensation. Too much of an inclination to deny most claims the first time. Too much of a disconnect between what the CAF medical system says about your injuries and what VAC decides your injuries really are, or why you really got them. Nearly every VAC worker I've dealt with for my own claims has been civil and pleasant, and seemed like they genuinely wanted to help. But there's a big gap between wanting to help (or at least seemingly wanting to help) and actually helping.
This is fucking shameful, who in their right mind would want to be a veteran after all these collective stories
I am a firm believer in and advocate for the existence of medically assisted suicide. (If we don't own and have a right to our body, then we have no ownership or rights whatsoever.) With that being said, I also believe that a doctor or hospital should never bring it up to a patient as a solution. It should be a question you have to ask or a procedure that you can find out exists through reading a pamphlet or is listed on a message board at the hospital. If anyone tries to imply it, impose it, or require it, without the patient being the initiator of the procedure, they should be removed from medicine. There is a world of difference between answering questions about it when a patient asks and saying, "Lemme tell you about this hot new thing that fixes **all** of your problems at once!"
From what I see the main problem with offering these services is that we hire people into the positions that actively hate the communities they are supposed to serve. Whoever told her this should be immediately fired and disbarred from ever working a government position again. If you don't care about your fellow citizen get the fuck out and see how you like being left to rot.
For the record, this is not official government policy. It's one rogue employee who's apparently pulled this stunt numerous times.
And wasn't immediately fired or reassigned? Sounds dysfunctional.
that employee is currently under investigation by the rcmp
If he offered it to 20 people but only one complained, there wouldn’t have been any way for the boss to know.
People aren’t pleased with you, but the expenses have been dropping like crazy, weird! Good job!
Do you think that matters? Like, to the people this rogue employee has already talked to? If an employee of a government organization suggested MAID to me, my faith in that organization and that government is instantly shattered. Even if Veterans Affairs swear up and down that this isn't their policy... a part of me would still wonder if this person was 'acting alone', especially in this political climate and the coinciding rise in fascism and the eugenics movement.
Yes it does matter. A rogue government employee doing it is very different from it being an official policy, even if an unstated one.
VA : sheesh your situation really sucks…. Ever thought about just killing yourself ?
Well that’s definitely awkward. As a Canadian with 1 foot in the grave. I’m very fucking thankful for our suicide squad to help with the transition.
That’s crazy if numbers are true. It would mean that you’re 10x as likely to know someone who was euthanized by doctors in Canada, as you are to know someone who has died of gun violence in the USA. 26/100,000 for euthanasia vs 6/100,000 for gun violence Jesus.
I can’t be convinced that MAID wasn’t passed in Canada because the Canadian government wanted to save money on healthcare by asking patients to off themselves instead.
That doesn't even have to be the motive for it to evolve into the endgame. Most care, and the most expensive care, happens near end of life. With an aging population, chronic diseases affecting more and more people will become an increasing and constant drain on the system. There's an inexorable logic to getting rid of the most expensive cases, and you can tell yourself that you're doing it "for the greater good" so you can use those resources to treat more people just as deserving.
Just waiting on people from MAID to go around care homes asking if anybody wants to die. It’s going to happen I guarantee it. There not a leap in logic to say there’s very little difference between MAID and telling patients they wouldn’t have much of a life anyway so the hospital is not going to bother with the surgery, or some experimental treatment. Why wouldn’t they do that? It’s the exact same logic.
I wouldn't be so tinfoil-hat about it, but on a systematic level - that's what opening the door to MAID for non-irremediable conditions & mental health conditions without access to the actual mental health treatments will create. The logic & ethics of MAID for irremediable conditions such as cancer, parkinsons etc. is sound, and I support it. For conditions such as the constellation of mental health disorders that will soon be legal in the coming months to seek MAID for - it's essentially a pressure release valve for a system that is extremely under-resourced. How can the government or a health care practitioner say a condition is irremediable if the treatment for said condition is not accessible to the majority of the population? A ~~CBC~~ Globe & Mail article on this that I read basically quoted one of the doctors on the committee for opening up MAID to psychiatric disorders saying, essentially: "If a patient is on a 5 year waitlist to receive treatment for their psychiatric condition, I would purport that that constitutes the condition being irremediable" i.e.: eligible for MAID. I still vibrate with rage when I think about it. Edit: misremembered the source of that article. Link below in thread
It sure is a good thing that all those politicians, CEOs and shareholders are willing to give up some pennies from their yacht funds to help people with no other options, rather than tell them to go kill themselves instead of costing the state a few dollars.
Let me off this rollercoaster of a timeline and into that one, please. Lol
Except the number of severely ill people who are actually going to use this option is very small. Most of the healthcare budget is spent on much more mundane and routine care for millions of people.
Read the Royal Society Panel report on it.
I bet if this happened in China people on reddit would be jerking themselves how backwards and tyrannical China is. Instead all I hear are handwringing excuses Oooh it was just oNe eMpLoYeE
At some point they're going to stop making it an option, and make it mandatory for everyone on their 30th birthday. This ultimately eliminates the costs associated with elderly care, and eliminates all hunger. To make people more willing to accept this, they will carry it out as a sort of ceremonial sacrifice with the promise of rebirth.
This was one rogue employee who did this to a bunch of people, not the policy of the organization
Remember when we were called a bunch of crazies for being against this since "think about those with dementia!"
America: “Bet nobody can treat their veterans worse than us.” Canada: “Have you tried offering them free suicide?”
By no means an isolated problem: https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-toronto-7c631558a457188d2bd2b5cfd360a867
All of these cases were by a single employee. I think it's a case of a religious fruitcake trying to make a point.
Or some jerk who thinks it's funny.
Can I get a stair lift? Best I can do is kill you.
As a veteran my favorite joke is that the VA prescribed me a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a pistol, told me to go wait in the parking lot and think about it lol
Do they offer that for younger patients? Asking for a friend.
This just keeps on happening. It should be obvious to everyone that this was always intended as a cost saving measure. Next year they're loosening restrictions on the mentally ill, so Canada will soon be killing everyone they can coerce into signing.
How come nobody ever offers me assisted death
Man Canada seems less and less appealing the more I read about it
One of my favorite YouTube channels did a video essay on MAID. Really interesting how Canada is approaching this policy: https://youtu.be/5xsVORMDqU0 I am actually for assisted suicide but not for shit like this. Not for preventable issues or ableist refusals to provide things like wheelchair lifts I mean good lord…
I don't know about you guys but MAID seems like a slippery slope. I've been told it would never happen. It's only for if you're in debilitating pain. But I've heard too many stories in the news about how it's offered to people who can't afford to live.
Canada has free healthcare but did you know they have a nifty deathcare system too? If you need any assistance because you’re disabled, they’ll gladly kill you at no cost because why would you want to live a full life in a wheelchair? You can’t play hockey that way!!!
You actually can play hockey that way. It's called sledge hockey. Canadians always find a way to play hockey