[HN Gopher] More than 10k Canadians received a medically-assiste...
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       More than 10k Canadians received a medically-assisted death in 2021
        
       Author : walterbell
       Score  : 25 points
       Date   : 2022-08-13 20:14 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.ctvnews.ca)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.ctvnews.ca)
        
       | hey2022 wrote:
       | The rise is somewhat predictable and surprising at the same time.
       | 
       | Personally I don't think there is anything more empowering (in
       | this domain) than knowing that you can be in control of the
       | conditions of your own death.
       | 
       | The surprising part is perhaps the speed at which this
       | fundamental societal shift is happening. 3.3% of all deaths in
       | Canada were assisted deaths in 2021!
        
         | hluska wrote:
         | A very close relative suffered for years before she finally
         | passed away. She passed away before medical assistance in death
         | was available.
         | 
         | Watching that hardcore spark plug of a human be absolutely
         | destroyed by a disease was awful and changed my view on medical
         | assistance in death. We wouldn't make a dog go through what she
         | did. Offering her some control over her way out would have been
         | much more humane than what she ended up going through.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | walterbell wrote:
       | https://apnews.com/article/covid-science-health-toronto-7c63...
       | 
       |  _> His application for euthanasia listed only one health
       | condition as the reason for his request to die: hearing loss.
       | Nichols' family reported the case to police and health
       | authorities, arguing that he lacked the capacity to understand
       | the process and was not suffering unbearably -- among the
       | requirements for euthanasia. They say he was not taking needed
       | medication, wasn't using the cochlear implant that helped him
       | hear, and that hospital staffers improperly helped him request
       | euthanasia. "Alan was basically put to death," his brother Gary
       | Nichols said.
       | 
       | > Disability experts say the story is not unique in Canada, which
       | arguably has the world's most permissive euthanasia rules --
       | allowing people with serious disabilities to choose to be killed
       | in the absence of any other medical issue._
        
         | julianlam wrote:
         | There will always be people who misuse systems to achieve their
         | own ends (in this case, quite literally.)
         | 
         | What's important to also realize is that the solution isn't to
         | make the system harder to use, because a side effect of that
         | will be that people who NEED said system will find it
         | inaccessible.
         | 
         | e.g. disability insurance is rife with fraud. Insurers combat
         | this by auditing nearly all applications for fraud, and this
         | has the effect of denying recompense for those who are truly
         | disabled, for they do not, will not, or cannot jump through all
         | the arbitrary hoops introduced by the insurer to combat fraud.
         | 
         | I don't have a solution for fraud and abuse of systems,
         | however.
        
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       (page generated 2022-08-13 23:01 UTC)