Canadian doctors are warning that Health Canada’s push for euthanasia is forcing doctors to suggest assisted suicide to patients.
In a November 6 video by Christian filmmaker Frank Panico, three Canadian doctors, Will Johnston of Vancouver, David D’Souza of Toronto, and Catherine Ferrier of Montreal, revealed that physicians are forced to discuss euthanasia or so-called “medical assistance in dying” (MAID) with vulnerable patients according to Health Canada protocol.
“If a physician is suggesting euthanasia as an option or a treatment option for their pain or their suffering, then that is a very serious thing,” D’Souza, a family physician and a pain specialist in Ontario, warned.
“As a patient is more likely to take this option given that a health professional has suggested it,” he continued. “I think it does severe harm to the doctor patient relationship when physicians are now allowed and even suggesting euthanasia as a means to end their suffering.”
D’Souza’s concerns are in response to 2023 guidelines by Health Canada, titled “Model Practice Standard for Medical Assistance in Dying to Ensure Consistent and Safe Practice in Canada.” The document mandates that doctors and nurses must tell a patient about the assisted suicide options available to them while discussing medical care.
“[Physicians/Nurse Practitioners] must take reasonable steps to ensure persons are informed of the full range of treatment options available to relieve suffering,” subsection 6.1 notes, falsely presenting suicide as “treatment.”
Echoing D’Souza’s warning, Johnston, a Vancouver family physician and head of B.C.’s Euthanasia Resistance Coalition, explained that the regulations contradict previous promises that medical personnel would not be forced to participate in the practice.
“Promises were made that no doctor would ever be coerced to participate in euthanasia, no doctor or nurse would ever lose their job because they wouldn’t cooperate with euthanasia,” he declared.
“No hospital would have to do it. No nursing home, no palliative care unit would be forced to host doctors killing patients who wanted to die. All of that was a complete fiction. All of those things have now happened,” Johnston lamented.
Similarly, Ferrier of the Division of Geriatric Medicine at McGill University Health Centre recalled doctors pushing assisted suicide on a family member who had brain cancer.
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