Here's why critics believe hundreds of medically assisted deaths shouldn't have happened
CTV
Critics of medical assistance in dying (MAID) say there were more than 600 cases last year where they believe the program shouldn't have been an option at all.
Recently released data from Statistics Canada shows a record high in the number of people who chose medical assistance in dying (MAID) in 2023, but critics of the law say there were more than 600 cases last year where they believe the program shouldn't have been an option at all.
Those cases did not involve patients with a terminal illness; instead, critics claim mental health issues played a significant role in the decision to choose death. And while MAID for non-terminal patients has been legal since 2021, critics say that the wider eligibility takes things too far.
Last year, 15,343 people received MAID, a 15.8-per-cent increase from the year prior. Among those who participated in the program in 2023, 95.9 per cent of patients were facing a natural death that was "reasonably foreseeable" -- cases known as Track 1
The remaining 622 patients fell into Track 2: cases where living a long life is possible, but the patient chose death because of other factors, which may include mental health issues.
Though a terminal illness is no longer a requirement for the program, eligibility remains restricted to adults with what Health Canada calls a "serious or incurable illness, disease or disability," who are facing "an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability" and who "have enduring and intolerable physical or psychological suffering that cannot be alleviated under conditions the person considers acceptable."
Dr. Sonu Gaind, a psychiatry professor at the University of Toronto, says the system as it currently operates is troubling.
"It's particularly concerning for the path to MAID for disabled people who are not otherwise dying, because in that path, the nature of suffering parallels the traditional markers of suicide," he told CTV News in an interview Saturday. "That includes things like feeling a burden and a strong sense of loneliness."
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