The majority of Canadians are now worried that those who struggle socially or financially may end up seeking assisted suicide instead of adequate healthcare, according to a recent study.
The Angus Reid Institute conducted a study along with Cardus, a Christian think tank based in Hamilton, Ont. to better understand Canadians’ relationship with the government’s controversial Medical Assistance in Dying program.
First introduced in 2016, the program has since assisted in the suicides of over 40,000 Canadians.
The study found that three-in-five Canadians, (62%) say “they worry about socially and financially vulnerable Canadians looking to MAID in lieu of adequate and quality health care.”
That’s a startling figure when one considers how many Canadians currently live with moderate or severe physical or mental health disabilities in addition to grappling with economic strains.
Furthermore, the majority of respondents who identified as suffering from some such condition also reported having faced discrimination during a health care experience, citing poor quality and access.
Previous research from Angus Reid found that 29% of Canadians, or nine million, had chronic difficulty accessing health care.
“Canadians working in health care either currently or formerly are also concerned about the access challenges people living with disability (PWD) face in Canada. Two-in-five (37%) health care say health care for PWD is good (34%) or excellent (3%), while a larger group say it is poor (33%) or terrible (12%),” reads the report.
“Meanwhile, two-in-five (40%) of these workers say they lacked the knowledge and tools needed to address the needs of PWD.”
Additionally, the cohort of respondents living with a severe disability were more than twice as likely to “strongly” worry about the fallout from Canada’s decaying healthcare infrastructure as those living without a disability.
“Federal and provincial health ministers need to prioritize improved access to quality health care for Canadians with disabilities, along with improved palliative care and mental health care generally,” Cardus’ health program director Rebecca Vachon told True North.
However, despite 62% of Canadians expressing concerns, a growing number of people are accessing Canada’s assisted suicide program in tandem with the program’s criteria threshold expanding.
The loosening of its barriers has led a coalition of disability rights organizations to launch a Charter challenge against the federal government in Ontario’s Superior Court.
An Ontario man recently had his assisted suicide request approved after experiencing a physical decline from what was labelled as post-COVID-19 “vaccination syndrome.”
The case is an anomaly and the term remains up for debate.
“Canadians have a clear preference for the procedure to be available in order to give patients greater control over end-of-life decisions, with approximately three-times as many supporting (63%) versus opposing (22%) MAID under the 2021 criteria, which removed reasonably foreseeable death as a qualifier for eligibility,” reads the study.
Yet the number of MAID deaths in Canada per year has increased tenfold since its implementation with Quebec leading the charge as 6.6% of all provincial deaths can be attributed to the program.
The jump in deaths could be tied to the program’s increasing exposure, as 6% of Canadians say they “know a friend or family member who was offered MAID without requesting it” noted the study.
“Among those who say someone close to them received this offer, one-in-three (37%) say that this offer was accepted while two-in-three (63%) say it was rejected.”
Exposure to assisted suicide was higher among those older than 54 (24%) and those in Quebec (26%).
“It’s clear that Canadians are worried that those who are vulnerable and marginalized because of disabilities, poverty, or other factors, often feel they’re left with no choice except MAiD,” said Vachon.
She noted that the study’s findings revealed that “Canadians with disabilities are facing real barriers to living well and flourishing – a situation that is simply unacceptable in a truly compassionate society.”
