Committee reviewing euthanasia in Canada finds some deaths driven by homelessness fears, isolation
An expert committee reviewing euthanasia deaths in Canada’s most populous province has identified several cases where patients asked to be killed in part for social reasons such as isolation and fears of homelessness
LONDON (AP) — An expert committee reviewing euthanasia deaths in Canada’s most populous province has identified several cases where patients asked to be killed in part for social reasons such as isolation and fears of homelessness, raising concerns over approvals for vulnerable people in the country's assisted dying system.
Ontario’s chief coroner issued several reports Wednesday — after an Associated Press investigation based in part on data provided in one of the documents — reviewing the euthanasia deaths of people who weren’t terminally ill. The expert committee's reports are based on an analysis of anonymized cases, chosen for their implications for future euthanasia requests.
Canada’s legal criteria require a medical reason for euthanasia — a fatal diagnosis or unmanageable pain — but the committee's reports show cases where people were euthanized based on other factors including an “unmet social need.”
AP's investigation found doctors and nurses privately struggling with euthanasia requests from vulnerable people whose suffering might be addressed by money, social connections or adequate housing. Providers expressed deep discomfort with ending the lives of vulnerable people whose deaths were avoidable, even if they met the criteria in Canada's euthanasia system, known nationally as MAiD, for medical assistance in dying.
