Doctors in Canada say they are facing subtle pressure from the Canadian government to use Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) to cut costs for the underfunded national healthcare system. MAiD includes both assisted suicide and euthanasia.
Critics of MAiD claim that Canada’s government is urging doctors to promote MAiD to their patients for money-saving purposes, and some Canadian doctors have now organized to resist. They argue that the government sees physician-assisted suicide as cheaper for the nation’s publicly funded medical system than providing patients with treatments.
In 2020, Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Officer publicly released a report that its MAiD program has created a “net cost reduction” of $86.9 million per year. Not stopping there, it noted that expansion of the categories of persons eligible for MAiD would create an additional net savings of $62 million per year. In an article for The Spectator, author Yuan Yi Zhu, wrote, “Health care, in particular for those suffering from chronic conditions, is expensive; but assisted suicide only costs the taxpayer $2,327 per ‘case.’ And, of course, those who have to rely wholly on government-provided Medicare pose a far greater burden on the exchequer than those who have savings or private insurance…. There is already talk of allowing ‘mature minors’ access to euthanasia too—just think of the lifetime savings.”
A group of 1,502 Canadian doctors have formed Physicians Together with Vulnerable Canadians (PTVC) and have publicly expressed their concerns about the situation on the group’s website:
Medicine… has been transformed into a technical occupation that allows physicians to deliberately end the lives of their suffering patients. Forced participation in arranging and facilitating euthanasia and assisted suicide is now required by certain regulatory colleges…patients can no longer unconditionally trust their medical professional to advocate for their life when they are at their weakest and most vulnerable. Suddenly, a lethal injection becomes part of a repertoire of interventions offered to end their pain and suffering.
PTVC’s online statement demands that the expansion of MAiD be curtailed because it is eroding fundamental patient and doctor relationships and protections. Dr. Ramona Coelho, a family physician and founding member of PTVC, told the Ottawa Citizen, “Our profession has been coerced into facilitating suicide rather than preventing it, for ever-increasing numbers of citizens. We watch in utter dismay and horror at how the nature of our medical profession has been so quickly destroyed by the creation of misguided laws.”
In addition, Canada’s newest anti-euthanasia and assisted suicide organization “MAiD to MAD: Physicians Together with Vulnerable Canadians” has over 1500 signatures from Canadian doctors for its plaintive and eloquent online petition against Canada’s “misguided” MAiD regime. In particular, Dr. Coelho, also a founding member of MAID to MAD, criticized the expansion of MAiD to adolescents. She noted, “There is evidence that messages that promote suicide, and knowing someone who has engaged in self-harm or suicide, both raise the risk of teenage suicide contagion.”
In 2016, Canada’s legislature, in response to a Supreme Court of Canada decision, determined that MAiD would be permitted for “competent adults” with “grievous and irremediable” medical conditions. Since then, illnesses no longer must be terminal, a 10-day waiting period has been abrogated, and suicide for mental health reasons and “mature adolescents” are also ready to be welcomed. There have been reports of MAID requests for lack of adequate housing, in lieu of providing handicap-accessible accommodations, and more.
