A Canadian woman who went to the emergency room with back pain said she was left shocked when a doctor immediately floated the suggestion of euthanasia.
Miriam Lancaster, 84, was rushed to Vancouver General Hospital last April with a fractured sacrum, a break at the base of the spine relatively frequent in elderly people.
Lancaster said she was stunned by the doctors’ immediate suggestion upon examination.
‘I was approached by a young lady doctor whose very first words out of her mouth is we would like to offer you [euthanasia],’ Lancaster said in a video posted on X.
The retired piano teacher said she just wanted to find out why she was in pain and had never considered a medically-assisted death.
‘That was the last thing on my mind,’ Lancaster added. ‘I did not want to die.’
She said that she had been most upset by the ‘timing’ of the request.
‘A patient is already upset and disoriented and wishing they weren’t there,’ she told the National Post. ‘To give them a decision, a life-terminating decision, when they are in this condition, that’s what I object to.’
Lancaster added that she was not thinking about ‘cashing my chips,’ which her daughter agreed with.
‘To be offered [euthanasia] right off the bat for a non-life-threatening condition? It was a matter of pain management,’ she said. ‘Just because someone is 84 does not mean they’re ready to go on the scrap heap of life.’
She called the hospital’s treatment of her mother an ‘insult to seniors.’
Euthanasia is legal in Canada for those who are 18 and over, able to make decisions for themselves and have a ‘grievous and irremediable medical condition.’
That does not mean a fatal or terminal condition, but rather ‘an advanced state of decline that cannot be reversed’ or ‘unbearable physical or mental suffering.’
There have been 76,475 medically assisted deaths in the country since euthanasia was legalized in 2016, per the Canadian government.
Weaver said religious motives prevented her from accepting euthanasia, which is also known as medical aid in dying (MAID).
‘My mother and I are practicing Catholics,’ she said. ‘We would never accept MAID under any circumstances.’
Lancaster’s daughter claimed that other treatment options were only suggested after euthanasia was firmly rejected.
‘The doctor said, “Well, you could get rehab, but it will be a long road, and it will be very difficult,”‘ Weaver said.
Hellbound and Down 