Alzheimer Society supports advance MAID requests, but also good dementia care
CTV
The Alzheimer Society says people with dementia should have the right to request medical assistance in dying in advance — but it must not be a replacement for high-quality palliative care.
Andrée McGrath is living "a really wonderful life."
She and her husband of 49 years, Rick McGrath, live in Kanata, Ont., where they golf, take walks and laugh loudly and often. They travel south for the winter and adore their two grown-up sons.
After the 68-year-old was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease about a year ago, she cried.
"A lot, a lot, a lot — I cried," McGrath said in a phone interview, choking up.
"I have a wonderful marriage and I frankly wish I had, you know, 20 years of good health, 20 more years to enjoy it," she said.
McGrath is determined to keep doing the things she loves. When the time comes that she can't, she said, she wants a medically assisted death.
”I am so in favour of MAID. We've already talked to our family doctor about it and he said, 'well, we're not there yet.' So he knows that his hands are tied," she said.
