Canadian man claims that he was pressured to request euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Michael Kaplan wrote and indepth article that was published in the New York Post concerning Roger Foley, a Canadian man who was pushed to ask for an assisted death while being denied the care that he needed to live. Kaplan also researched the 2019 death of Alan Nichols, who died by euthanasia even though he was only depressed.

Kaplan reports on the Roger Foley case:

“I’ve been pressured to do an assisted suicide,” he told The Post, alleging this happened with caretakers at Victoria Hospital, a primarily government-funded center in London, Ontario.

“They asked if I want an assisted death. I don’t. I was told that I would be charged $1,800 per day [for hospital care]. I have $2 million worth of bills. Nurses here told me that I should end my life. That shocked me.”

Foley’s claims to The Post echo his allegations in a lawsuit filed against Victoria Hospital Health Services Centre, among others, in which he claims that healthcare workers have pushed him to end his life.

Foley was pressured to die and he was further pressured by a collection agency. Kaplan states:

“Mr. Foley was told by hospital staff that he had stayed at the hospital for too long and if he did not receive self-directed funding [from local agencies, covering home care], he should apply for assisted death as an option,” the lawsuit claims.

It goes on to accuse the defendants of “sending a collection agency after [Foley] to pressure him into a medically assisted death,” adding that “defendants have violated [Foley’s] rights and freedom.”

Alan (left) with his brother Gary

Kaplan then looks into the death of Alan Nichols.

The medically assisted suicide of Alan Nichols in 2019 has been held up as an example. The 61-year-old was depressive and reportedly suicidal. Canadian law requires patients can only legally undergo medically-assisted suicide if they suffer from a physical — not mental — ailment. Nichols, it is reported in an article by Associated Press, listed hearing loss as his reason for euthanasia. Relatives maintain that hospital employees helped him to put in the request.

“He didn’t have a life-threatening disease,” his brother Gary Nichols told CTV news. “I didn’t think he had a sound mind at all.”

Kaplan also reports that Foley claims in his lawsuit that the hospital denied him food and fluid.

The lawsuit references “the defendants denying him food and water, and failing to provide him with the necessities of life and endangering his life [by] making him critically acidotic [a condition in which there is too much acid in bodily fluids].”

Kaplan concludes the article with Foley stating:

Said Foley: “There is pressure on [disabled] people who should be treated equally and celebrated for their strength and diversity and difference.

“Society deems us better off dead. We have to justify being alive and [to pro-euthanasia contingents] our lives don’t matter.”

Previous articles related to Roger Foley:

• Abandoning people: Canada's broadening euthanasia law (Link). 
• Canada is getting comfortable with killing people with disabilities (Link).
• People with disabilities oppose Bill C-7 expansion of euthanasia (Link).