Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
For instance, Ontario doctors who oppose euthanasia have been ordered to do an effective referral for euthanasia. Effective referral is defined as referral for the purpose of the act. This means that a physician who opposes killing must send his patient to a physician who will kill.
Recently the Delta BC Hospice Society that are refusing to do euthanasia have been ordered by the Minister of Health to do MAiD or lose their funding.
Sign the petition: Hospice Organizations Must NOT be Forced to do Euthanasia (Link).
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| Mark Doner |
Doner is dying of cancer. The 58-year-old Peterborough man says since he was diagnosed in 2017, it has spread from his colon and small intestine to his liver. He’s outlived the time his doctors gave him and he’s not going to get any better.Do support worker cut-backs lead to elder abuse? Hodgins quotes Jennifer Brown, a long-term care advocate in Ontario.
Doner lives alone in a highrise apartment in Peterborough, and currently gets assistance from personal support workers (PSW) six days out of the week. Every second day, he gets two hours of help. It’s one hour on alternate days. Nurses visit about every three days.
Earlier this month, he says a co-ordinator from the Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) dropped by, asked him some questions, then informed him his personal support worker care hours would be cut to just one hour on the days where he was getting two hours of care.
“I just don’t get it,” says the former resort chef. “I’ve had operations. I’m in pain. I have some good days but even my girls (the PSWs) say I should be asking for more care.”
“How is cutting the weekly hours of personal support workers in Ontario LTC (long-term care) homes combating elder abuse?The article does not suggest that Doner is being pressured to euthanasia. Whether the Ministry of Health wants people, like Doner, to ask for euthanasia or euthanasia is an "accidental" outcome of their policy, the fact is that he is being denied the care that he needs and euthanasia is being pushed.
“How does sowing anxiety and fear about their own job security among the uncut personal support workers, that results in increased sick days and heavier workloads for those who do come to work, combat elder abuse?”
The Health Minister should know that people, like Doner, who live in their private residence cost the government less money than those living in assisted living or a hospital. If the government does not provide enough home care support he may eventually be forced to move into assisted living which will cost the government a lot more money.
At the same time, the number of seniors waiting for long-term care placements is at a record high.
This is not a conservative vs liberal ideological debate - home care is less expensive and more dignified.
Denying people the home care that they need is dangerous and promotes euthanasia (MAiD).
there is no 'accident' about this. The sociologist Robert K Merton talked of unintended consequences, arguing that in organizations, 'unintended' was a cover. We have the latent situation: care hours being cut, resulting in savings to the PSW organization; we have the lack of supports for a man who lives alone. This is not pressure; it is prodding by neglect. If he complains, I'm sure he'd be told about euthanasia, since he is 'suffering'. That the social structure adds to that suffering is ignored in the euthansia offer. The latent: we want him to 'freely' ask for euthanasia. The manifest: his care hours are cut. The organizational benfit: less money spent on caring for someone who's only going to die anyway. This is the organization taking advantage of the marginalized and vulnerable for their own ends, virtue signaling when they get criticized.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if his doctor would identify him as palliative? Maybe the LHIN would be able to then trigger or open additional services for him, including volunteer visits.
ReplyDeleteThe late Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer predicted compulsory euthanasia of the elderly, the ill, and the disabled in yhe 1970s as a logical outcome off abortion.
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