Tag: euthanasia

Canada performed thousands of same-day assisted suicides, as it was revealed one elderly woman was killed despite withdrawing her request the day before. 

The medical assistance in dying (MAiD) program was approved in 2016 and has since been expanded to include requests from patients whose deaths are ‘not reasonably foreseeable,’ and will soon include those with mental illness. 

More than 200 people in Ontario alone chose to die within 24 hours of their approval in 2023, a 2024 Ontario report found, The Free Press first reported. 

Of the 219 deaths, 30 percent of them chose a same-day procedure. 

In 2024 alone, across all of Canada, 16,500 people participated in the MAiD program, including a woman only identified as Mrs B. 

Mrs B had undergone a coronary artery bypass graft, which led to several medical complications afterward, including additional surgeries, forcing her to opt for a palliative care approach to treatment, the Ontario report said. 

The woman, who was in her 80s, later expressed to her family that she desired an assisted suicide. On her behalf, her spouse requested MAiD, and the following day, a MAiD practitioner assessed her eligibility. 

Mrs B told the practitioner that she wanted to withdraw her request after rethinking, citing religious and personal reasons, and that she’d like to continue with hospice care and palliative sedation, the report said. 

However, Mrs B ended up in hospital the next day, only to be released back home, but not before physicians noted her spouse had ‘caregiver burnout.’ A request was made on her behalf to have in-patient hospice care to help the spouse, but she was denied. 

The same day, her spouse contacted MAiD again and requested an urgent assessment. A different practitioner determined the elderly woman was eligible for the program, despite her withdrawing her request the day before. 

The practitioner, however, did not approve a same-day assisted suicide due to the ‘drastic change in perspective’ and the possibility of coercion. 

Despite the original evaluator wanting to speak with Mrs B again, it was denied due to the urgency of the request. A third person was sent to Mrs B’s home, where she was once again approved. 

Hours later, the assisted suicide happened and Mrs B was killed.  

A man, who was only identified as Mr C, made a MAiD request five days after he was admitted to the hospital for cancer. 

His condition rapidly deteriorated and he became delirious. Despite his mental state, a medical provider ‘proceeded to vigorously rouse’ him so he could mouth ‘yes’ when asked about his request, the Ontario report found.  He was then killed. 

Canada got rid of the 10-day reflection period following a request in 2021, leaving eligible patients to only have to prove their condition is ‘intolerable.’ 

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A family has accused Canada‘s laws of ‘killing the disabled and vulnerable’ months after their son, who suffered from seasonal depression, died by assisted suicide. 

Kiano Vafaeian, a 26-year-old blind man with Type 1 diabetes, died in December using Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program, which allows patients with ‘grievous and irremediable’ medical conditions to request a lethal drug. 

Eligibility was expanded in 2021 to include people with chronic illnesses, disabilities and, pending parliamentary review, potentially individuals with certain mental health conditions.

Vafaeian faced mental health struggles stemming from a car accident at 17, and according to his mother, his depression often flared during the winter months.

For years, the family had successfully prevented their son from using the program. Last year, however, Dr Ellen Wiebe, a MAID provider in British Columbia, approved Vafaeian’s death – news the family only learned about days later. 

Vafaeian’s mother, Margaret Marsilla of Ontario, alleged that Wiebe was ‘coaching’ her son on how to qualify as a Track 2 patient – those whose natural deaths aren’t deemed ‘reasonably imminent,’ according to Fox News Digital.

‘We believe that she was coaching him on how to deteriorate his body and what she can possibly approve him for and what she can get away with approving him for,’ Marsilla told the outlet.

Marsilla has since been battling fiercely to undo the Track 2 modification and to support Bill C-218, a legislative effort intended to restrict MAID for those whose only condition is a mental illness. 

‘We don’t want to see any other family member suffer, or any country introduce a piece of legislation that kills their disabled or vulnerable without appropriate proper treatment plans that could save their lives,’ Marsilla told Fox.

At 17, a severe car accident derailed Vafaeian’s college plans, and he spent years moving between family members’ homes, his mother said. 

It all came to a head in 2022: after losing vision in one eye, he became ‘obsessed’ with the assisted-suicide program. 

‘He kept on emphasizing about how he could get approved,’ Marsilla told the outlet. 

‘We never thought there would be a chance that any doctor would approve a 22- or 23-year-old at that time for MAID because of diabetes or blindness.’

That year, Vafaeian attempted to die under the program for the first time after being approved, even going so far as to schedule a time, date and location for the procedure in Toronto. 

But the plan unraveled when his mother accidentally discovered the appointment email and called the doctor, posing as a woman inquiring about MAID. She also took to social media to publicly voice her opposition. 

She taped the conversation with the doctor and sent it to a reporter. The doctor then postponed the procedure over the outcry and decided not to go through with it. 

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An elderly woman was euthanized within hours of her husband claiming she changed her mind after insisting she wanted to live.

Canada‘s Medical Assistance in Dying laws allow patients to request a painless death if an assessor agrees their terminal condition meets certain requirements.

Patients often wait weeks, but it can happen the same day the application is lodged if judged to be medically urgent by a MAiD provider.

But a report by the Ontario MAiD Death Review Committee raised concerns that safeguards were being eroded that led to questionable deaths.

One case study was that of a woman in her 80s referred to as ‘Mrs B’ who had complications after coronary artery bypass graft surgery.

She went into severe decline and opted for palliative care, and was sent home from hospital with palliative support with her husband caring for her.

But as her condition got worse, her elderly husband struggled to care for her even with the help of visits by nurses.

‘Mrs B reportedly expressed her desire for MAiD to her family. In response, and on the same day, her spouse contacted a referral service on her behalf,’ the report read.

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