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Mental illness as a sole diagnosis has previously been excluded from medical assistance in dying (MAID) legislation. But Senate amendments to Bill C-7, which already expanded MAID access to include people who are not terminally ill, will also make MAID available to people who suffer solely from mental illness.
Today in The Conversation Canada, University of Toronto psychiatrist Karandeep Sonu Gaind explains why that amendment means that Bill C-7 violates the first rule — and the primary safeguard — of MAID: that the patient must be suffering from “a grievous and irremediable medical condition.”
Irremediable means no remedy, no cure, no hope of recovery. While many medical conditions have a predictable course of illness, this is not true of mental illnesses. That renders the irremediability safeguard meaningless, and puts vulnerable people at risk of accessing MAID when they would have made a recovery.
Also today:
Regards,
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Bill C-7 seeks to expand access to medical assistance in dying (MAID) to people who are not terminally ill, including those who suffer solely from mental illness.
(Pixabay)
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The fundamental underpinning of all MAID requests is supposed to be the presence of an incurable medical condition, but it's not possible to predict that a mental illness will not improve.
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