(NewsNation) — Medically assisted death for those with mental illness is set to become legal in March in Canada as part of a law that has seemingly divided the country.
The law would make Canada one of only a handful of countries to permit the procedure for people whose only medical condition is mental illness, the New York Times reported Wednesday. Jason French, a man who has tried to kill himself twice, told the newspaper he backs the law, saying he “can’t keep suffering.”
However, critics contend the legislation is indicative of inadequacies in Canada’s health care system, particularly psychiatric care.
The country legalized medically assisted death for terminally ill people in 2016, and the law was later expanded in 2021 to include other severe illnesses. The 2021 law excluded people whose sole medical condition was mental illness for a two-year period, until March 17, 2023, according to the health ministry.
However, parliament has delayed implementation and may do so again, The Times reports, leading to uncertainty as to whether the expansion will take effect in March as scheduled.
In 2022, 13,241 Canadians opted for assisted death, a 31.2% increase from the year before compared to 32.6% from 2021 to 2020, according to health ministry data. The average growth rate from 2019 to 2022 was 31.1%.
Some health care providers and opponents of the expansion worry that hopeless patients will now opt for death instead of treatment that could take years.
Dr. John Maher, a psychiatrist in Barrie, Ontario, told The Times: “I’m trying to keep my patients alive. What does it mean for the role of the physician, as healer, as bringer of hope, to be offering death? And what does it mean in practice?”
The country has already seen a growth in the number of people opting for assisted death whose natural death was not reasonably foreseeable: 463 in 2022 compared to 223 in 2021.
Gus Grant, the CEO and registrar of Nova Scotia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, told the Canadian Press he believes the country is ready for the expansion.
“Our hope is that government will not be influenced by the concern that the regulators will not be ready,” he said.
Others, like Sonu Gaind, believe the legislative process has moved too fast. Gaind, chief of the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre’s psychiatry department, is among those who want the government to pause expansion plans, the Canadian Press reported.
He believes there are questions that still need to be addressed, such as how doctors can assess whether someone with a mental illness can get better or not.
“Does it mean if you’ve had decades of suffering from an illness, and you’ve tried things, and nothing has helped? Is that what it means?” he told the news outlet.
As debate continues, patients like French are anxiously awaiting a decision. He told The Times he isn’t suicidal but doesn’t want to die “‘terrified and alone.”
“I want to do it with a doctor. I want to die within a few minutes, peacefully,” he said.
If you or a loved one are experiencing mental distress, please call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
