‘Worse than flipping a coin’: Psychiatrist warns MAiD mental illness assessments have a high chance of inaccuracy
At a MAiD committee hearing in Ottawa, a psychiatrist, Dr. Sonu Gaind, testified that it’s impossible to tell the difference between suicidality and a MAiD request.
Last week, Gaind testified at the feds’ Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying, sharing concerns regarding mental health and MAiD, which will become a sole qualification for euthanasia on March 17, 2027.
On the surface, Pierre Poilievre’s recent appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast had more good than bad. The Conservative leader came across as likable, down-to-earth, and clear. He stressed the need to unleash Canada’s energy potential. He called for cutting regulations that have suppressed innovation. He pushed for lower government spending. These are all sound ideas and Canada would surely benefit from them.
The case of Noelia Castillo, a 25-year-old Spanish woman who died by euthanasia, has opened another line of conflict between the Trump administration and Europe, as Washington has ordered a formal inquiry into the Spanish government’s handling of the case, according to a leaked diplomatic cable obtained by the New York Post.
According to the alleged cable, the US State Department instructed its embassy in Madrid to investigate what it described as ‘serious concerns’ over ‘systematic human rights failures’ surrounding Castillo’s case.
Some health-care workers who either directly provide medical assistance in dying or work in that field say they are strongly opposed to Bill 18 — which, if passed, would prevent doctors or nurse practitioners from administering MAID to patients if they are unlikely to die within the next 12 months.
In a letter published in the Edmonton Journal on Friday and shared with CBC News, 25 health-care workers signed their names to make their opposition known.
Leftists claim that Canada has better healthcare than America. But Canada apparently realized that it’s cheaper to allow residents to kill themselves than provide real healthcare.
Canada legalized assisted suicide in 2016 for people who faced imminent death. Medical assistance in dying (MAID) allows a medical practitioner to end a person’s life. Since then, Canada has expanded the program rapidly to more people. Starting in March 2027, Canada will allow anyone age 18 and older who claims a mental illness to allow the state to kill them. You don’t need to have a fatal or terminal condition to be eligible.
When she was taken by ambulance to a Vancouver hospital with lower back pain the likes of which she’d never experienced, the last thing 84-year-old Miriam Lancaster said she was thinking of was “cashing my chips.”
Noelia Castillo Ramos, a 25-year-old Spanish woman, died by euthanasia yesterday. Spanish law allows citizens over 18 with ‘chronic or invalidating suffering’ to receive assisted dying. Ramos, whose short life was one of unimaginable difficulty, certainly fitted the criteria.
The scale of growth of Canada’s assisted-dying industry has become an easy talking point for skeptics both in Canada and abroad. The New York Post, in typical tabloid fashion, announced that Canada will “soon cross the sickly six-figure threshold” of 100,000 deaths by medical assistance in dying (MAID), noting the figure will surpass the number of Canadian deaths during the Second World War. Conservative MPs cited that figure in social-media posts, adding that what was once pegged as a “last resort” has metamorphosed into an entirely different operation. During a press conference announcing new restrictions on MAID in Alberta, Premier Danielle Smith noted the pace of growth in MAID deaths in cautionary terms (up 64 per cent nationally between 2021 and 2024), saying these trends “should give anyone pause.”
Four-and-a-half years after he was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, a Dutch teen was euthanized at his request.
The boy, aged between 16 and 18, had described his life as “joyless.” He’d struggled with anxiety and mood-related problems, and where he fit in, in the world. Oversensitive to stimuli, “every day was an ordeal he had to get through,” according to the latest annual report from the Netherlands’ regional euthanasia death review committees. “In the final weeks before his death, he lay in bed the whole time.”
Canadians’ support for medical assistance in dying (MAID) remains robust even when mental illness is the sole underlying condition, and it has strengthened over time rather than faded.
According to research conducted by Environics Research for Dying With Dignity Canada (DWDC), 80 percent of Canadians support eligibility for MAID where mental illness is the sole underlying medical condition, a level consistent with previous years.
Is that only because Whites are the overwhelming majority of MAiD patients?
A total of 15,927 people who received MAID responded to the question on racial, ethnic or cultural identity. The vast majority (95.6%) identified as Caucasian (White). The second most commonly reported racial, ethnic or cultural identity was East Asian (1.6%). These percentages are close to those reported for 2023 (95.8% Caucasian; 1.8% East Asian).
Alberta has proposed a bill that would limit the use of medically assisted dying – also known as voluntary euthanasia – in the Canadian province solely to end-of-life circumstances.
In 2021, Canada expanded access to medically assisted dying, known domestically by the acronym Maid, to people with serious, incurable illnesses or disabilities, even if their death is not reasonably foreseeable.
Canada is also due to expand access next year to people whose only medical condition is mental illness, though that has twice been delayed.
Called a “medical error” by physician Romayne Gallagher, palliative care options for Canadians seem to be few and far between.
This is a problem Canada has faced for years — and instead of solving it, many are resorting to euthanasia.
Those who opt for Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying program, or MAiD, under Track 1, which includes patients whose deaths are “reasonably foreseeable,” must experience unbearable suffering from a grievous or irremediable illness.
Dr. Menno Oosterhoff leaned forward in his living-room chair, took a sip from his coffee mug, and told me about the first time he ended a patient’s life.
She was 18 years old and had been diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder, an eating disorder, and autism. Despite years of treatment, she was still bedeviled by negative thoughts, and she told Oosterhoff, a specialist in child and adolescent psychiatry in the Netherlands, that she couldn’t stand any more suffering. He suggested deep brain stimulation, an invasive procedure sometimes used to treat severe OCD. She insisted that she wanted help dying instead.
Rushed, incomplete assessments, families kept in the dark, loved ones driven to choose MAID because of unbearable suffering.
A new study adds to growing evidence that Canadian families’ experiences with doctor-assisted death are deeply mixed, with some describing the experience as raw, traumatic and surreal — including sometimes oddly “cheerful” providers — and others describing caring and compassionate deaths for loved ones who’d “had enough.”
OTTAWA — Liberal MP Marcus Powlowski and Conservative Senator Yonah Martin will co-chair a special joint committee on the expansion of Canada’s medical assistance in dying (MAID) program.
The two were acclaimed joint chairs at the committee’s first meeting on Tuesday night.
