Shiloh
Editor, Senior Moderator
Source: https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/medical-assistance-in-dying-update
Demand for physician-assisted death continues to rise as patients' families request more grief support
Jason Herring
Updated: January 12, 2020
More gravely ill Albertans are choosing to end their lives through the province’s medical assistance in dying program each year since it began in June 2016.
In 2019, 377 Albertans underwent physician-assisted death, up from 307 in 2018 and 206 in 2017. But the program is still struggling with access, says Dr. Jim Silvius, the Alberta Health Services lead for the program.
“We do have some parts of the province, particularly in the central part, where we have areas where it’s difficult for us to find accessors and providers who will assist an individual who’s seeking an assisted death,” Silvius said.
Some physicians who choose not to participate are conscientious objectors with moral opposition to death under medical supervision. But some doctors just don’t feel comfortable with the procedure due to a lack of training.
“You’re ending a life, and that’s not what we were trained to do,” Silvius said, partially because many doctors weren’t exposed to physician-assisted death in medical school.
Last year, AHS detailed plans to survey the family members of those who had died through MAID to improve the program. Silvius said the AHS struggled to receive responses and instead considered findings from a separate AHS South Zone survey.
Those findings indicated that while families generally found it easy to find information and they felt supported throughout the process itself, they need more emotional and bereavement support after losing their loved ones.
However, Silvius says AHS doesn’t have the budget to support implementing in-house supports...
...In addition to the 952 Albertans in total who have gone through the process, a total of 190 applicants have been denied medically assisted death due to a failure to meet federal criteria, with the most common reasons for denial being a loss of capacity or death not being reasonably foreseeable...
Demand for physician-assisted death continues to rise as patients' families request more grief support
Jason Herring
Updated: January 12, 2020
More gravely ill Albertans are choosing to end their lives through the province’s medical assistance in dying program each year since it began in June 2016.
In 2019, 377 Albertans underwent physician-assisted death, up from 307 in 2018 and 206 in 2017. But the program is still struggling with access, says Dr. Jim Silvius, the Alberta Health Services lead for the program.
“We do have some parts of the province, particularly in the central part, where we have areas where it’s difficult for us to find accessors and providers who will assist an individual who’s seeking an assisted death,” Silvius said.
Some physicians who choose not to participate are conscientious objectors with moral opposition to death under medical supervision. But some doctors just don’t feel comfortable with the procedure due to a lack of training.
“You’re ending a life, and that’s not what we were trained to do,” Silvius said, partially because many doctors weren’t exposed to physician-assisted death in medical school.
Last year, AHS detailed plans to survey the family members of those who had died through MAID to improve the program. Silvius said the AHS struggled to receive responses and instead considered findings from a separate AHS South Zone survey.
Those findings indicated that while families generally found it easy to find information and they felt supported throughout the process itself, they need more emotional and bereavement support after losing their loved ones.
However, Silvius says AHS doesn’t have the budget to support implementing in-house supports...
...In addition to the 952 Albertans in total who have gone through the process, a total of 190 applicants have been denied medically assisted death due to a failure to meet federal criteria, with the most common reasons for denial being a loss of capacity or death not being reasonably foreseeable...