Senators worried it’s easier to access MAiD than other health services – iPolitics.ca

Senators studying the governments Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) legislation, Bill C-7, say the government has made it easier to access the life-ending medical procedure than it is to access palliative care.

The concerns arose on Wednesday when the Senate committee on legal and constitutional affairs heard testimony from Health Minister Patty Hajdu on Bill C-7.

Sen. Kim Pate of the Independent Senators Group (ISG) questioned the minister on whether she would be willing to amend the bill to ensure Canadians can access palliative care, disability support services, home care, housing, and income support before being eligible for MAiD.

Canadians now have an access to Medical Assistance in Dying protected by law, but do not have access to palliative care as a core service included in the Canada Health Act, she said.

The government should ask the provinces to commit to providing services like palliative care as a prerequisite to federal transfer payments, Pate said, before asking whether the minister would support such an amendment.

While Hadju agreed that there is more to do on equity files, she said on this particular file, I think we need to move quickly.

The minister advised against an expansive amendment, saying incorporating all those services would jeopardize the ability to move the legislation rapidly.

The Senate is studying the legislation as Ottawa works toward a Dec. 18 deadline after a September 2019 Superior Court of Quebec ruling found that the laws precondition for assisted death that the individual seeking it must face a reasonably foreseeable natural death was unconstitutional.

C-7 proposes to: remove that requirement; remove the 90-day waiting period required to administer the procedure after approval is granted; and disqualify those whose sole underlying condition is a mental illness.

Conservative Sen. Yonah Martin wondered what federal monitoring measures were in place to ensure that socio-economic factors, were not leading patients to choose MAiD. She also noted that Disability Inclusion Minister Carla Qualtrough told the justice committee that its easier to access MAiD than to get a wheelchair in some parts of the country.

Hajdu said theres actually a challenge in accessing MAiD across the country, especially in rural parts of the country where healthcare is already limited.

The fact that we have so few practitioners that are willing to do this in the countrymeans that it can be very difficult, actually, to access MAiD in certain parts of the country, she said.

The government also wants increased data collection to include information on who chooses assessments for MAiD, as well as those who request assessments but choose not to proceed with the procedure, Hajdu said.

The Angus Reid Institute released a poll on Nov. 10 that suggests 69 per cent of respondents are concerned that expanding MAiD will cause people with mental illness like depression to choose death rather than deal with the underlying cause of their condition. Another 65 per cent feared that expanding MAiD would result in the elderly and the disabled feeling pressured to choose death so as not to burden others, while 62 per cent worry the health-care system will start neglecting long-term care and chronic disease in the elderly as MAiD becomes more available.

READ MORE: Experts caution against expanding medical assistance in dying

Sen. Miville-Dechne (ISG) said theres a major crisis in palliative care services in Quebec.

If its easier to get MAiD than palliative care, what kind of society are we living in? she said.

Hadju reiterated that its not easier to access palliative care, adding that most patients choose MAiD after having already received palliative care.

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Senators worried it's easier to access MAiD than other health services - iPolitics.ca