"I shouldn't have to beg for my life."
Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
Wyton explains:
Madeline has been preparing for medical assistance in dying, or MAID, for over a year, and says she could choose to die as soon as late July if she does not come up with the money to cover treatments for her complex mitochondrial and post-viral conditions.Madeline tells Wyton that she cannot afford the cost of her treatment and care that she estimates at $100,000 per year, on a disability assistance benefit of $1,358 per month.
Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a multisystem disease that affects patients in myriad ways, leaving many with profound fatigue, cognitive and mobility challenges, trouble sleeping and in extreme pain. It can impact nearly all systems in the body, including respiratory, muscular, nervous and immune systems.
Madeline told Wyton:
“They would rather see me die than recognize my illness and pay for the treatments that keep me alive,”Wyton explains that approximately 600,000 Canadians have ME/CFS and yet there are only 6 specialists in Canada. Wyton warns that more of these people may soon die by euthanasia.
“My death is no more inevitable than a diabetic’s who can’t get insulin.”
"Madeline" which is not her actual name, started a podcast to discuss the health issues and her euthanasia dilemma at I Am Madeline.
Wyton reports that the podcast was created to save Madeline's life. She writes:
The podcast was born not just of Madeline’s desire to save her own life, but also to prevent others from experiencing the same neglect that she says leaves her with no choice but to prepare to die.Madeline said that she wants to live and that she shouldn't have to beg for her life, but Madeline also said:
Madeline was reluctant but decided to participate after speaking to a close friend and realizing she doesn’t want to die “even more than I don’t want to do the podcast, that I don’t want to do the GoFundMe, that I don’t want to have to bare my soul and beg for my life.”
“MAID isn’t giving up; it’s just being brutally practical about what’s happening and that it’s because the larger system has abdicated on my whole disease.”Madeline may be right, but she clearly explains how euthanasia is not about freedom, choice or autonomy but rather an abandonment of people at their time of need.
13 comments:
Where is her family? Where is the church? Where is the Body of Christ? Someone who knows and loves her needs to intervene--her life is worth more than money. The government doesn't care about her life--just wants to promote their MAID agenda--someone needs to enable her to NOT fall prey to their agenda.
I would like to encourage Madeline to keep searching for a way to give...blogging is one way! Her witness is so very precious!
I have a daughter named Maddalena who at 30 suffers from mental illness to the point of being an easy victim for an unscrupulous and inhumane health system that could suggest to her to just end the suffering......
But God made her and you Madeline with gifts yet undiscovered which these illnesses are covering up.
I would like to declare with you that a new freedom from this bondage is just around the corner....in fact, is available right now, in the Name above every other Name, our Lord and sweet Saviour Jesus Christ, by the Precious Blood He chose to shed on the Cross to free you.....RECEIVE His Healing NOW, and proclaim His glory! Allelujah
This country used to have free Medicare, where is that? MaID is an immoral and evil institution
Sadly not everyone gets healed of Mental illness even Christians. Her family should try and help her first though 100,000 is a lot of money. Perhaps a GoFundMe might help. However, she might get healed in Jesus Name
There is a GoFundMe for Madeline:
https://ca.gofundme.com/f/MadelinesMiracle
You should be more careful about how you publicize this kind of situation. Physicians (like me) reading would be asking what is the actual diagnosis? Mitochondrial dysfunction and CFS are separate entities even though there is an overlap. There is no proven effective treatment for CFS - though long term there is hope for recovery. Is this very expensive treatment a recognized and at least provisionally proven treatment prescribed by a recognized specialist(s) or is it an unproven highly experimental drug prescribed by a 'fringe' practitioner? There may be very valid reasons why funding is being refused by the Health CAre authorities. She certainly needs emotional and social support which focusses on valid reasons for hope.
Dr. Arnold, who cares what the diagnostic is? Who cares if the treatment is experimental? Who cares if she never gets well? Who are you to decide who lives and who dies, what life is worth, etc. etc.? This society pretends to be progressive but that only means it now worships the culture of death. Life is perfectly meaningful with a debilitating disability. Suffering cleans and purifies the soul. We are not only what one sees on the outside. The most important part is what we don't see, and nobody has the right to extinguish life due to lack of funds. That is what government is for. We should not allow gov to offload its responsibility or come up with colored schemes to avoid it. We are being taxed to death all our lives only for the bureaucrats to terminate us once we are no longer useful to them.
Dear Anonymous.
I don't think Dr Arnold Voth is saying the things that you are attacking him for saying. He is questioning the issues in the article, and he should feel free to do so, nonetheless, Dr Voth does not support euthanasia as much as he might question the issues within the article. When I published the article, I did not try and interpret her reasons or demand for special foods, etc., I only stated her comments and I thought the story was compelling and important.
As a Christian and someone who cares about this woman, I would like to know if the go fund me page listed by a poster is legitimate...without knowing the woman's true name? How do I know who is receiving funds?
I hate to tell you this, but free Medicare scarcely includes ME. In many cases it actually makes us sticker because most doctors are unaware that a treatment called GET (graded Exercise therapy) causes deterioration in the majority (>75%) of ME patients and that it's now been discredited by multiple government health organizations. Health Canada recommended against it in 2003, for instance. I'll add another comment below because this is going to be too long to have as a reply.
As someone who's had ME for 14.5 years, and been actively involved in advocacy since about 2014, I can tell you that it has the backing of #MeAction one of the biggest international organizations currently working to avocate for ME patients. https://act.meaction.net/page/36743/petition/1
Given some of these comments, I would like to provide since context to this story. Although I don't know "Madeline" personally, I've had ME for 14.5 years and been actively involved in advocacy since 2014. There is a petition for "Madeline's care hosted on the website of #MEAction (https://act.meaction.net/page/36743/petition/1), one of the major international advocacy organizations for ME patients. Accessing even basic care for ME is very challenging due to an unfortunate political history, which has resulted in doctors recommending (in some cases, even forcing) patients to overextend themselves in the name of Graded Exercise Therapy (GET). Unfortunately, GET is harmful to the vast majority of ME patients and severally governments have called for it to be abandoned as treatment. Because of this, our basic needs often tend to go unnoticed, and our symptoms are often dismissed as all-in-the-mind, or even outright faking. I actually have PTSD from having my ME symptoms derided in this way, even to the point of medical professionals outright blaming me for them. It is extremely distressing to me that, just as governments are starting to take this disease, which comes with a quality of life (using this as a statistical term here, denoting overall severity of disability, pain, etc. , Not to imply lower quality of person of the pro-euthenasia lobby does) lower than that of almost any major chronic illness, seriously. This is all coming just in time for it to be taken so seriously that doctors would rather euthenize us than provide adequate treatment. Or they just deny that we're actually suffering.
You are an idiot
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