Private forums show Canadian doctors struggle with euthanizing vulnerable patients
TORONTO (AP) — A homeless man refusing long-term care, a woman with severe obesity, an injured worker given meager government assistance, and grieving new widows. All of them requested to be killed under Canada’s euthanasia system , and each sparked private debate among doctors and nurses struggling with the ethics of one of the world’s most permissive laws on the practice , according to an Associated Press investigation.
As Canada pushes to expand euthanasia and more countries move to legalize it , health care workers here are grappling with requests from people whose pain might be alleviated by money, adequate housing or social connections. And internal data obtained exclusively by AP from Canada’s most populous province suggest a significant number of people euthanized when they are in unmanageable pain but not about to die live in Ontario’s poorest and most deprived areas.
Some doctors fear moving forward even with cases that meet Canada’s legal requirements, which allow euthanasia for people with “irremediable suffering” from serious but nonfatal medical conditions and disabilities . On private forums, doctors and nurses have expressed deep discomfort with ending the lives of vulnerable people whose deaths were avoidable, according to messages provided to AP by a participant on condition of anonymity due to their confidentiality.
