Disabled Canadian woman says she was offered death, both before and after cancer surgery

A grandmother from Novia Scotia, a province in Canada, was about to be taken to the operating room for a mastectomy when the doctor sat her down in the hallway and suggested she undergo assisted suicide instead.

The woman, who remains anonymous, is 51, and had been diagnosed with breast cancer. She also had a history of autoimmune and other disorders, like lupus and fibromyalgia, which made her eligible for so-called ‘Medical Aid in Dying (MAID),’ even without the cancer diagnosis.

Still, she had not expressed a desire to die before being confronted with the option, according to the Telegraph.

“I was sitting in two surgical gowns, one frontways and one backwards, with a cap on my hair and booties on my feet. I was shivering and in a hard plastic chair and all alone in a hallway,” she said. “The [doctor] sat down and went through all the scary things with me. Then he asked ‘Did you know about medical assistance in dying?’ All I could say was, ‘I don’t want to talk about that.’ I was scared and I was alone and I was cold and I didn’t know what was coming. Why was I being asked about assisted dying, when I was on my way into what I truly believe was life-saving surgery?”

Despite refusing, she was asked about MAID two more times as she continued receiving treatment for breast cancer, which she said made her feel like a burden, and that doctors felt she would be better off dead.

READ: Normalizing assisted suicide will lead to a ‘duty to die’

“I felt like a problem that needed to be [gotten] rid of instead of a patient in need of treatment,” she said. “I don’t want to be asked if I want to die.” She also added that she has been waiting for an appointment to help manage her pain at a specialty clinic for a year. “However, if I were to call the MAID hotline this morning, I’d be talking to a doctor tomorrow afternoon,” she said.

Dr Leonie Herx, a palliative medicine consultant in Calgary, told the Telegraph that doctor shortages have led to situations in which patients who are not at risk of dying in the near future are offered MAID anyway. “In some cases, MAID has become the only therapy provided, which is completely horrific from a medical perspective,” she said.

If MAID was listed as an official cause of death in Canada, it would be the fifth-leading cause of death. The most recent report found that deaths from euthanasia skyrocketed by 31% in 2022.

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