Canada debates offering physician-assisted death to patients who aren’t terminally ill

Ron Posno has early-stage dementia. He wants to make sure that if his capacity becomes so diminished, he can take advantage of Canada's assisted death law. But it does not provide for people with dementia.

Posno figured Canada, which in 2016 passed a federal law on what people here call medical assistance in dying, would be a place where he could set out his wishes to die on his own terms while he was still competent. As it turns out, “advance requests” like the one he tried to make are not allowed.

Now the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has introduced a bill that would overhaul the process.
Polls show widespread support in Canada for broadening access. But much like the law it is intended to replace, the bill has faced criticism — for being too restrictive or too expansive or too confusing.

For Posno, “it failed dementia patients again completely.

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Canada’s law is more liberal than those of the U.S. jurisdictions where the practice is legal. In those jurisdictions, which include California, New Jersey and the District of Columbia, only mentally capable, terminally ill patients with a prognosis of six months or less who can self-ingest the drugs are eligible.

But implementing the law in Canada has not been without challenges.

Doctors puzzled over the definition of a “reasonably foreseeable” natural death. Ellen Wiebe, a physician based in Vancouver and one of the first in Canada to provide medical assistance in dying, remembers hashing out policies in email discussion groups.
Criticism exploded in 2018 over the case of Audrey Parker, a 57-year-old woman with terminal breast cancer that had spread to her brain. Fearful that the disease might rob her of the mental cognition to consent a second time, she scheduled her death earlier than she otherwise would have wished.

Doctors reported that patients were forgoing pain medication, even though it increased their suffering, so they could provide that second consent.

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Canada debates offering physician-assisted death to patients who aren’t terminally ill

Lifestories: Someone Had to be Benny (1996) [1/5]

A young man chooses to stop treatment and has to go to court in HBO's "Someone Had to Be Benny" (1996).

The Widow's Lament in Springtime by William Carlos Williams

The Widow's Lament in Springtime
by William Carlos Williams

Sorrow is my own yard
where the new grass
flames as it has flamed
often before but not
with the cold fire
that closes round me this year.
Thirty-five years
I lived with my husband.
The plumtree is white today
with masses of flowers.
Masses of flowers
load the cherry branches
and color some bushes
yellow and some red
but the grief in my heart
is stronger than they
for though they were my joy
formerly, today I notice them
and turn away forgetting.
Today my son told me
that in the meadows,
at the edge of the heavy woods
in the distance, he saw
trees of white flowers.
I feel that I would like
to go there
and fall into those flowers
and sink into the marsh near them.

What to Say to a Dying Person

Jenny Harrington writes about words of comfort for someone who is dying:

You will not be alone.
You will not feel pain.
We will be okay.




Three Magical Phrases to Comfort a Dying Person

How Going To A Dead & Company Concert With A Stranger Helped Me Heal After Losing My Son

Decades after her son was killed in an accident, a mother attends a rock concert with someone who remembered him, and it helps her feel close to him again.

Over the past few decades, the feeling of Jason sitting next to me on the couch watching television, our hips or legs touching, or riding in the car and grinning beside me, had disappeared. It began slowly, but over time I started having trouble picturing Jason’s face: the exact color of his eyes, the curve of his chin. Even scarier, I couldn’t remember the specific times we spent together, or recall the content of our conversations. But at this moment, my arm grazing Matt’s, I can suddenly picture Jason standing next to me again and I can almost feel our elbows touching.

The sensation is electric.

Music is at the center of my memory of the last time I saw Jason. We were at his dad’s house in Delaware and had the place to ourselves. Jason was taking piano lessons and wanted to show me what he’d learned. I slid over on the piano bench next to him, close enough so our bodies were touching. He played Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” and each haunting note was perfect. When he finished, he turned towards me. “Mom, you’re crying,” he said as he wiped a tear from my face. “So are you, Sweetie,” I said doing the same for him. We reached for each other for a long, lovely embrace. It was our last one. That moment is etched in my soul. And now so is this one in this field.

How Going To A Dead & Company Concert With A Stranger Helped Me Heal After Losing My Son

There is beauty and joy at the end of life, too

What people don’t understand is the beauty and joy to be found at the end of life. When I tell people I work at a hospice, they often say “that must be so hard.” But my favourite thing is hearing people’s stories, their experiences, their successes, their failures – the things that life has taught them. I love helping them share these stories with their family members. It helps the family members keep their loved one alive in their memories after he or she dies.

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Hospice workers encourage conversations about things that want to be said and heard. We create time for families to connect, laugh and cry together. Mostly, we help create a legacy of the resident that will remain with their family.

There is beauty and joy at the end of life, too

A Play To Help Conversations and Understanding About Dementia

An actor sits in an armchair on a makeshift stage. People wander in, some elderly, many middle-aged and a few who look to be in their 20s. The actor, partly covered in a blanket, rocks slightly, staring at and wringing her hands. “Puh … puh …. puh,” she says. It’s Connie. This is no ordinary theatre. This is Newbury library at 7pm on a Wednesday. Some, oblivious to the waiting play, talk and exchange books. Most stay to watch the performance.

Emily, Connie’s daughter, appears when there’s a full audience of around 35 people. “Hi mum, it’s me,” she says. Kissing Connie on the head, she talks about her first TV cooking show and looks through a large book. “There’s a recipe of your rock cakes in here,” Emily says. “Here we are, Connie’s rock cakes … gosh 1987.” It’s Connie’s memory book. She has dementia.

The play, Connie’s Colander, follows Emily’s visit to her mother, a retired domestic science teacher who has Alzheimer’s. As they reminisce while Emily explains how she’s bringing her mother’s recipes to the show, we see how their relationship has evolved during Emily’s life and Connie’s illness.

When the play’s the thing to help us talk about Alzheimer’s