Good news appears to be flowing from Le Droit this week!
In an article entitled “Euthanasie: Ottawa n’entend pas assouplir ses règles “, or roughly translated “Euthanasia: Ottawa doesn’t intend to soften up the rules”, it was made clear that the Harper government has no intentions of decriminalizing euthanasia or assisted suicide.
Federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson’s director of communications stated yesterday that euthanasia and assisted suicide raise ethical, legal and medical issues. And while the government is closely watching the consultation process of the Quebec National Assembly’s Commission on Euthanasia, they have no plans for legal reform in this area.
This follows on the heels of the April 2010 defeat of the Bill C-384, a federal private members bill which sought to decriminalize euthanasia and assisted. The bill was defeated by a vote of 228 to 59.
Since such a clear, firm stand has been taken and recognized at the federal level, let us then take time to discuss what needs to be done to strengthen end-of-life care.
In 2000, the Senate Subcommittee report, Quality End-of-Life Care: The Right of Every Canadian, in part, recommended that:
Quality end-of-life care must become an entrenched core value of Canada’s health care system. Each person is entitled to die in relative comfort, as free as possible from physical, emotional, psychosocial, and spiritual distress. Each Canadian is entitled to access skilled, compassionate, and respectful care at the end of life. This Subcommittee sees care for the dying as an entitlement for all.
Calls for a more compassionate and comprehensive approach to end-of-life seem to be assigned a low priority in the existing health care system. Thus, in spite of statistical evidence indicating an increase in the numbers of total deaths and acknowledged changes in demographics, disease patterns, and health care institutions, there has not yet been the required shift of resources to end-of-life care.
We affirm both good medical care and palliative care, and recommend that the federal and provincial governments focus energy and resources toward improving end-of-life care for all Canadians.