Physicians urge government re-think of MAID criteria expansion
· Toronto Sun
OTTAWA — Concerned physicians spoke out Monday on Parliament Hill against Canada’s planned expansion to its medical assistance in death (MAID) framework.
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During a Monday morning news conference in West Block, members of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition offered their support for Bill C-218, a private member’s bill intended to prevent next year’s inclusion of mental illness as the sole medical condition for seeking physician-assisted suicide.
“I want to provide a voice to our most vulnerable, those who have or are suffering from mental illness,” said Dr. Peter Blusanovics, a Montreal physician who spoke at Monday morning’s news conference. “Basic needs are currently not being met in our healthcare system. Without (Bill C-218,) we are condoning a bypass towards suicide, and blatantly admitting defeat.”
Mental illness, he said, needs to be identified and treated. He said those seeking to commit medical suicide aren’t seeking death, but healing.
“There is a current lack of medical support, such as physicians, psychologists, social workers — there is a lack of psychiatric support and long waiting lists to be assessed,” said Blusanovics, a physician at a Montreal psychiatric hospital.
“I know that offering medical aid in dying provides no solution. Everyone deserves the right to be treated with dignity and humanity.”
Controversial ;track two; MAID coming next year
In Feb. 2024, legislation was passed to formally expand MAID to those whose sole underlying medical condition is mental illness, coming into effect on March 17, 2027.
Patients seeking MAID are assigned to one of two tracks: Track one for those with terminal illnesses or whom natural death is near; and track two for those whose death is not a reasonable outcome in the foreseeable future.
Although Statistics Canada doesn’t include MAID in its annual top-10 list of most common causes of death, government figures said 16,499 Canadians died via MAID in 2024 — making medical suicide that year’s fourth most common cause of death between accidents (20,260) and strokes (13,725.)
Tabled last spring by Conservative MP Tamara Jansen, Bill C-218 aims to permanently halt the inclusion of “track two MAID.”
The bill is currently undergoing second reading in the House of Commons, and is on the order paper Monday to recieve its second round of debate.
Mentally ill don’t meet criteria for informed consent, doctor says
Dr. Paul Saba, a family physician from Lachine, Que., told reporters there’s no way for most psychiatrists to determine which patients’ conditions are untreatable.
“From a legal standpoint, those with mental disorders requesting euthanasia, which has been euphemistically called ‘medical assistance in dying,’ do not meet the condition of free and informed consent, because the desire to die in most cases is a symptom of mental illness,” he said Monday morning.
Last month, Alberta’s provincial legislature tabled a bill that would prevent their physicians from prescribing MAID for track two patients — citing patient safety and growing skepticism for the federal government’s efforts to expand MAID eligibility.
““The consequences of the decision are permanent and irrevocable, and because of this, we have an obligation to consider MAID with the utmost care and caution,” Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said at a news conference in Edmonton last month.