Investigation finds ‘systemic’ errors in British Columbia ‘assisted dying’ regime

Systemic violations are occurring in Canada within British Columbia’s medical assistance in dying (MAiD) oversight unit, according to a recent investigation.

Key Takeaways:

• The investigation found paperwork errors, reporting failures, and a key conflict of interest.

• The error rate in MAiD assessments was about 4.9% — which equates to around 135 people.

• The MAiD Oversight Unit leader tasked with ensuring compliance also happens to be the person in charge of British Columbia’s MAiD program — a disturbing conflict of interest.

The Details:

The B.C. Catholic reports that violations committed by unit administrators included errors in assessing whether people qualified for assisted suicide under law, potentially leading to illegal deaths.

Documents obtained by The B.C. Catholic from the government on July 10 via a freedom-of-information (FOI) application reveal thousands of paperwork errors surrounding the 2,767 assisted suicides carried out in 2023, as well as reporting failures and a major conflict of interest involving the unit’s top administrator.

Amanda Achtman, founder of Dying to Meet You, told Live Action News in an email:

The B.C. Catholic investigation reveals that the Canadian euthanasia/MAID regime is replete with what are bureaucratically being described as ‘Reporting Issues and Completion Errors.’

This means that there are numerous cases in British Columbia in which even Canada’s extremely permissive euthanasia laws and policies are not being followed.

A spreadsheet released to the outlet from the oversight unit shows that “in 2023 alone, the oversight unit found 2,833 ‘reporting issues’ and ‘completion errors’ in the paperwork for 2,767 MAiD deaths and for 1,041 cases in which euthanasia was applied for but not completed,” the outlet reported. 

The error rate in assessing assisted death eligibility requirements was 4.9% in 2023, according to data supplied.

“It was alarming to read about the error rate in MAiD assessments in B.C.,” University of British Columbia Law Professor Isabel Grant told The B.C. Catholic. “Looking at only one indicator — errors around the eligibility requirements — we see an error rate of 4.9 per cent. When we are talking about close to 3,000 deaths, that is a very high number.”

Astonishingly, a November 2023 memo addressed to the former British Columbia Deputy Minister of Health and written by an unknown bureaucrat, claims the unit should not to be “overly strict” about reporting infractions of assisted death regulations to authorities, because such reporting could decrease assisted deaths despite a ‘high demand’ for it.

“… Overly strict or severe use of referrals … may discourage physicians or nurse practitioners from providing MAiD despite ‘high demand,’” the memo states.

A separate FOI document provided in 2023 to Dr. Deborah Cook, a Member of the Order of Canada who was recently inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame, showed six cases between 2019 and 2023 in which a “medical assessor had concluded that a patient was eligible for MAiD even though the assessment ‘did not find they met all individual eligibility criteria.’”

Why It Matters:

“What we’re seeing in B.C. is evidence that the scales have been tipped in favour of death,” said Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition. 

Grant similarly commented on British Columbia’s extreme liberalization of assisted death, which in practice, goes beyond even the province’s already broad legal limits: “We can see the approach of the British Columbia government to MAiD deaths—err on the side of making MAiD accessible, not on the side of compliance with the Criminal Code.”

Despite the thousands of ‘reporting issues’ and ‘completion errors’ recorded by the MAiD oversight unit, The B.C. Catholic reported:

Since 2018, the unit has made only 22 referrals to regulatory bodies for possible disciplinary action and just two referrals to law enforcement for potential criminal charges, according to an unattributed declaration appended to the end of the FOI document.

The statement concludes by saying the referrals ‘represent less than 0.2 per cent of the total number of cases of MAiD reviewed by the unit.’

In addition to the above administrative violations, The B.C. Catholic noted that the British Columbia Ministry of Health’s MAiD Oversight Unit is compromised by the fact that the unit’s leader, Sara Bergen, also leads the overall administration of MAiD in British Columbia.

The Bottom Line:

Achtman, who meets regularly with Canadians impacted by the country’s extreme assisted dying laws, told Live Action News: 

Canadians deserve so much better. More and more, I am hearing from Canadians who are distressed about the circumstances of their loved ones death.

Some find out about euthanasia only after the fact. Others are baffled at how their family member or friend qualified to have their life terminated and never expected that it would happen to someone they love. 

She added, “While it is impossible to get killing ‘right,’ more accountability and a better investigation of the current abuses of the flawed system would be a start to restoring our value of human life.”

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