Woman chooses assisted death because Canada’s treatment wait time was ‘weeks to months’

A Canadian woman chose to end her own life through the country’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) because she was unable to receive her cancer treatments in a timely manner. The situation underscores the ease with which many Canadian citizens can access assisted death in contrast to the difficulties in receiving standard medical care.

According to CHEK News, 67-year-old Samia Saikali was diagnosed with incurable stomach cancer in March. Doctors told her that if she did nothing, her life expectancy was three to six months; if she chose chemotherapy, they expected her to live at least a year.

“She said I’ll do what I can, like, I will do treatment and fight for as long and hold on for as long as I can,” explained Saikali’s daughter, Danielle Baker. “I want to have the summer, at least, with you girls. We had so many plans. But she started to go downhill so quickly with the gastric cancer.”

Baker said the doctor warned them that treatment could be hard to obtain, explaining, “‘[T]hat wait times with BC Cancer right now are weeks to months,’ and just the wind was taken out of our sails,” she told Global News. “You know, it was cruel to be given a terminal diagnosis and the one person who can answer your questions, who can tell you what your options are, is completely inaccessible to you. And you just have to wait and hope that they pick you up.”

Though Saikali wished to start treatment immediately, it took her 10 weeks to be able to see an oncologist.

“It should not have taken that long, because that was the difference, especially an aggressive cancer, between my mom being strong enough to handle, and withstand, treatment to give her a fair shot at more months to live, versus not,” said Baker.

By the time she was finally able to see a doctor, Saikali’s cancer had progressed to the point that treatment would not be as effective. Though she had started treatments, she couldn’t even get in for follow-up appointments to drain built-up fluids. Because this was a procedure that could only take place in a hospital, she was forced to sit in the emergency room for hours to get the help she needed. Finally, feeling overwhelmed, she decided to choose MAiD.

“I think the anxiety and just the, in her words, the inhumane treatment of having to sit in emergency to get these procedures, to try to get herself there. She was so depleted, she was in so much pain and she truly felt cast aside. She knew that it was too late for her and that she, you know, she couldn’t take it anymore,” said Baker.

“And that’s when she decided to control the only thing she could control, and that was how and when she died.”

Saikali’s story underscores what is happening with so many people in Canada — they are choosing MAiD because they are unable to obtain the help or services they need otherwise.

As Alex Schadenburg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition points out, “Euthanasia is not about freedom, but abandonment.”