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I've read all the available House and committee transcripts on #BillC7, and this is the problem: https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1334579172451250177
Basically, there are the actual MAID assessors and providers who tell you, based on actual experience with hundreds of patients, that these hypothetical scenarios are not what happens or would happen, and that these 'safeguards' just prolong suffering.
I.e., turns out they weren't effective policy instruments: individuals have suffered because they stop taking their meds to maintain capacity to consent, or can't receive MAID because they've lost capacity by the time they were supposed to receive it.
So the Liberals took these 'safeguards' out, because they weren't doing what they were designed to do. Dr. Daws, Dr. Green, Ms. Campbell, and Dr. Naud gave great committee testimony about this.
And then there are practitioners who don't provide MAID, and therefore don't understand the types of patients accessing it or how it has worked, who suggest that there is going to be death-on-demand.
Conservative MPs and other groups opposed to MAID then use this in their speeches.
But the procedures for assessing individual decision-making capacity, duress, coercion, and ambivalence aren't going to magically go away with C-7. The ones actually assessing MAID patients know that. Do the others have that little trust in their colleagues?
Practitioners assess capacity for general medical and end-of-life decision-making, including on withholding/withdrawing life-saving/sustaining treatment or palliative sedation, including that which is likely to end in death. This is central to Carter.
Dr. Green: "physicians, clinicians, nurse practitioners and health care workers make decisions about capacity and levels of coercion every single day in our office, every single time we see a patient, every single time we offer them. . . any treatment at all."
"We need to make sure the patient is aware of the information so that they understand their situation, their treatment options and the pros and cons of those treatment options. If they seek our guidance, we can do so, but ultimately the decision has to be the patient's"
"the patients I see have spent many, many weeks, months and often years thinking about this issue. This is not a snap decision for anybody. . .
The idea that they're having a transient thought that will allow them to proceed to MAID is I think insulting to the patient, to their process, to their decision-making ability, as well as to the ability of assessors and providers."
Dr. Naud: "There is a world of difference between doctors who are at the bedside of the patients asking for medical assistance in dying, who are involved, who are committed, who know what they are talking about, who are able to testify that it is a...
rigorous process, and doctors who will talk about medical assistance in dying, but who have never met a single patient, who have never been involved, and who often show contempt for those patients by refusing to meet with them if they have applied for medical assistance in dying"
I'm currently studying and writing about this, because these types of arguments are frustrating. #BillC7
