MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) is "Incredibly Rewarding" Work

"It's about honouring people's wishes, empowering people to have control over their own lives. It's wonderful that I have the opportunity to do that."

"I come in and say, 'Are  you sure this is what you want to do today'?"

"[Assisted dying is] the best work I've ever done."

"It's hard to even be in the same room as somebody who's suffering so severely. But then, of course, you know, I get to end that suffering, which is good."

"When everybody is ready, I say, 'OK, ready to go to sleep'?" 

"But, generally, [death is] very calm and peaceful. 

"...That is, of course, not the actual time of death because when people die, it's a slow process. Some cells die before others. So, the whole process for me, from the time I start injecting until I call that it's done, is about five minutes."

"I just get so many thank yous and hugs."

"[Complaints have] always resolved in my favour. But still, that's the kind of thing that the anti-MAID people have done to me, as opposed to threatening to shoot me [as an abortion-provider], which is nice."

"[I provide] what is right up to the edge of the law, and never beyond, of course. I'm working beyond where some providers would work ... it varies on how risk-averse people are."

"Some people are more conservative than I am. We all work within the law."

Dr. Ellen Wiebe, board member, research director, Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers

At 72, Dr. Ellen Wiebe devotes half her practice to medical aid in dying. It's the last work she's prepared to give up   National Post

"In Canada we don't use the word euthanasia. That's what we use for our pets. Here, we call it assisted dying", Dr. Ellen Wiebe once corrected an interlocutor. This doctor has a reputation; some honour her, while an equal number tend to view her with dreaded disdain. She has personally assisted well over 400 people to meet death 'on their terms'. Dr. Wiebe operates a contraception and medical abortion clinic in Vancouver, aside from being one of the most dedicated "pro-choice doctor providing peaceful deaths" in Canada.

Outside of Quebec, Dr. Wiebe was the first medical practitioner to perform a court-approved patient-requested euthanasia. She was featured recently in the BBC documentary, Better off Dead? that took a close observation of the assisted suicide controversy by international disability rights activist Liz Carr, an actor and comedian, who considers assisted suicide unsafe for people like herself and others living as disabled people.

 

Interacting with Dutch colleagues, Dr. Wiebe learned from them the drugs to use and their correct order as well as how to avoid complications such as prolonged time to death and how best to choreograph the procedure. Dr. Wiebe has, to her credit, numerous papers in the field of assisted dying. She mentors other doctors as well as hosting MAID training webinars and has on the opposite side of the ledger been accused of bullying and sneaking into faith-based facilities.

 

Dr. Wiebe is herself disabled. Following her diagnosis with heart disease at 40 years of age, she has been unable to walk more than ten metres, using a wheelchair and electric scooter. Multiple complaints have been lodged against her to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia sparking investigations that have all invariably found her to be in compliance with the rules of law surrounding Assisted Dying.

"When MAID was legalized, it was framed as a practice that was exceptionally required to ease the dying process or give some control at the end of life."

"We have veered very far from that and now uncritically accept the most aggressive provision of MAID and see growing attempts to describe this as the most meaningful form of medical practice."

Trudo Lemmens, professor of law and ethics, University of Toronto

"When someone says it's highly rewarding, those are exactly the words that people use when they're doing palliative care [or providing end-of-life care in the ICU]."

"It's absolutely not a celebration of the act of ending someone's life. It's a reflection of the intense emotional bond you form with families and patients."

"Nothing in the data lines up with the story that there are doctors pushing this."

"How many palliative care patients do palliative care clinicians have? How many times is palliative sedation [the use of drugs to render a dying patient unconscious] delivered?"

"If a smaller group of clinicians has opted to make this their full-time practice because of the need that they see, does that make it wrong? I don't think it does."

Ottawa palliative care and critical care specialist, Dr. James Downar

There is a difference between euthanasia, where the doctor pushes the syringe, to assisted suicide when the patient is provided with the means by which death can be met, in the presence of an advising physician. In Canada, the vast majority are assisted deaths, with euthanasia methodologically trailing far behind. In assisted suicide the person choosing to end life swallows a lethal amount of drugs the doctor prescribes. 

MAID providers with between a dozen and 113 assisted deaths each described the delivery of a medical death as "heart-warming" in one study; "the most important medicine I do", an ultimate act of compassion, "liberating" and "almost an adrenaline rush: I was surprised at how good I felt." this type of sentiment concerns Trudo Lemmens from the all-important perspective of a professional of law and ethics for whom a "pseudo-spiritual language", equates medical therapy with "quasi-religious zeal".

Canada's assisted death rate in general is strikingly high at 4.1 percent of all deaths in 2022 while British Columbia leads the country, at 6.6 percent of deaths by assisted death. B.C.'s record outpaces assisted-suicide pioneer countries such as Belgium and the Netherlands.  Reports have emerged from time to time of people driven to MAID as a result of poverty, debt, lack of housing, or food availability. The looseness of the acceptability criteria to be eligible for MAID and how assessors interpret the guidelines are of particular concern to some.

Leader of the Opposition Pierre Poilievre says he is ‘pleased to support’ Conservative MP Ed Fast’s private member’s bill ‘that would ensure that medical assistance in dying is not the solution to people suffering with their mental health.’  CBC

"[Pleasure from euthanasia is deeply disquieting], because death is usually a deeply painful or difficult moment for the patients and their loved ones."

""[What draws some providers to MAID] and what happens to a person when killing someone becomes a daily or weekly event?"

"Some providers have counts in the hundreds -- This isn't normal, for any occupation."

"Even members of the military at war do not typically kill that frequently. I think that's a question that we've not really ever asked."

Christopher Lyon, Canadian social scientist, University of York, United Kingdom

"My patients were all people who were suffering unbearably and chose this."

"Remember that we work in tragedy all the time, right? My whole career has been being with tragedies. When somebody gets the diagnosis of cancer, when somebody gets the diagnosis of a chronic illness like multiple sclerosis -- I mean, it's just one  tragedy after another."

"Why do we want to be doctors? Why do we want to care for people who are suffering tragedies? Because we can help. Because we feel like we can help. And that's why we get a good feeling about it."

Dr. Ellen Wiebe

Federal Justice Minister Arif Virani says the government is considering whether to proceed as scheduled with an expansion of medical assistance in dying to those who sole underlying condition is mental illness.  (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)