Report indicates that vulnerable people are the most exposed to suicide assisted in Canada

The legalization of medical assistance to die (MAID) has caused disproportionately high rates of premature death among vulnerable groups, according to a recent report by Cardus Health.

Hatch Healthan organization that seeks to promote a social system that supports natural death and helps institutions serve patients who approach at the end of their life, prepared a research report that evaluates the suicide assisted in Canada.

The report In Contrast to Carter: Assisted Dying’s Impact on Canadians with Disabilities (In contrast to Carter: The impact of assisted death on Canadians with disabilities), examines whether the maid expectations established in the Carter vs. case are met. Canada, presented before the Supreme Court of British Columbia.

In 2012, the court concluded in Carter vs. Canada that could be adopted in the country a medically assisted death program with due guarantees, that it would not create “greater risk” or an “excessive” impact on vulnerable groups, nor will its right to life disproportionately affect.

The safeguards established that suicide assisted by a doctor would be allocated mainly to people with terminal diseases, which doctors would carefully examine maid requests for people with disabilities or depression, and that those who felt a burden were felt socially isolated or suffered neurological diseases would be protected through a rigorous review process.

The Cardus report concluded that Canada has not met these expectations and that “the safeguards have not materialized.” For this, it was based on data from Health Canada, the independent Quebec authority for the supervision of terminal patients, the Office of the Forensic Medical Chief of Ontario, medical studies reviewed by pairs and public reports.

In 2021, Canada expanded the possibility of accessing the maid to patients with non -terminal and disabilities diseases, which resulted in 223 deaths from assisted suicide of people with non -terminal diseases in 2021, 463 in 2022 and 622 in 2023.

The report stressed that, between 2019 and 2023, at least 42% of all deaths from Maid were people who required disability services. This included more than 1,017 people who required disability services, but did not receive them.

The investigation revealed that the deaths from assisted suicide of those who “required disability services and received them” increased every year. In 2019, 2,223 people in this category died from assisted suicide. The figure increased to 3,219 in 2020, 4,278 in 2021, 4,819 in 2022 and 5,181 in 2023.

The deaths of those who “requested disability services and did not receive them” also experienced substantial increases. In 2019, 87 people from this group died from suicide assisted in Canada. By 2023, the figure had risen to 432.

The report said: “Those who died for Maid were more likely to have lived with a disability than those who did not die for Maid, despite the fact that both groups presented similar medical conditions and experienced a decrease in their abilities.”

According to the report, people suffering from mental illnesses also die from suicide assisted at disproportionate rates.

A study on deaths from assisted suicide between 2016 and 2019 in a Toronto Care Center found that the people who requested Maid presented high rates of “psychiatric comorbidity”, which means that two or more mental health disorders had been diagnosed. Of 155 patients requested MAID, 60 (39%) had documented psychiatric comorbidity, commonly depression.

According to Maid suppliers in 2023, almost half of the patients (45.3%) who died from assisted suicide informed to feel a burden for their family, friends or caregivers, 10% more than in 2022. In 2023, isolation and loneliness were reported as a source of suffering by 22% of those who received Maid, 5% more than in 2022.

The investigation found a disproportionately high number of people with neurological disorders, including dementia, died from assisted suicide between 2019 and 2023.

In 2023, almost 15% of the people who died from Maid had a neurological condition as a disease that he described. The study revealed that, in 2019, 589 people with neurological diseases died from assisted suicide, a figure that increased to 775 in 2020, 1,249 in 2021, 1,666 in 2022 and 2,279 in 2023.

In 2023, 241 people with dementia died from assisted suicide, and in 106 of the cases, dementia was the only underlying disease.

According to the report, Canada will expand medical assistance in 2027 to die to people with mental illness, so it is expected that the number of people with non -terminal diseases that seek medically assisted death are expected to increase even more.

Translated and adapted by the ACI Press team. Originally published in CNA.