Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
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| Heather Hancock |
Heather Hancock was urged to "choose" euthanasia while she was receiving medical treatment in Alberta a few years ago. Kaplan interviewed Hancock and reports:
Recalling a rough morning while being treated at a hospital in Alberta, Canada, Hancock told The Post, "I wasn’t moving very well and the nurse on my ward looked at me and said, ‘You really should consider MAID. You’re not living. You’re just existing.’"
Hancock remembers being in shock over what she interpreted as a suggestion she should opt for death, rather than wasting Canada’s publicly funded healthcare system by staying alive.
“I thought I misheard her; then the words settled into my being as she waited for an answer,” said Hancock. “I asked her, ‘Who gives you the right to judge what’s living and what’s existing?'”
According to Hancock, the nurse responded, “Now you’re just being selfish.”
“God put me into this world and he’s the only one taking me out,” Hancock added, “I told the nurse that my life is no less valuable than any other life.
“She just laughed in a mocking way and walked out of the room. I had that nurse removed from my care. I did not want to be anywhere near her.”
The nurse’s attitude is consistent with others Hancock says she has encountered.
Hancock told Kaplan that:
We require more healthcare dollars than able-bodied people and often do not get the same level of service; some doctors don’t even bother trying,” said Hancock, explaining that MAID frequently gets presented as “a good solution to your situation.”
“They make you feel like you are less than human … like you have nothing to offer the world. Doctors couch it as ending people’s suffering when really they are killing you,” she added.
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| Alex Schadenberg |
Opponents of MAID claim that those who advocate for the doctor-assisted suicide can be heavy handed to a damaging degree when suggesting it as an option.
“When you’re going through a difficult time and someone is telling you, ‘Oh, if I was in your situation, I would opt for MAID,’ well, that is not a helpful thing,” Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director of Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, told The Post.
“Nearly every major hospital in Canada has a MAID team. These teams are each comprised of a couple doctors and a couple nurses who go throughout the hospital, making sure MAID is offered and available to people who want it. But they’re not just providing access to euthanasia, they are selling it.”
Kaplan asked for an example of "selling" euthanasia:
Schadenberg recalled a situation in Ottawa:“I received a call from a man who was visiting his father there. The MAID team came in, asked the father, who was suffering from a deadly condition, if he would like MAID. The dad said no.”
But that was not the end of it. “When the family members went downstairs for coffees, the MAID team came back and asked the patient again. They thought he was saying no only because the family members were there.
“It’s not a point of suggestion when you continually harass people with this concept of MAID. The family was ticked off.”
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| Roger Foley |
“I’ve been pressured to do an assisted suicide,” he had told The Post, alleging this happened with caretakers at Victoria Hospital, a primarily government-funded facility in London, Ontario.
“They asked if I wanted an assisted death. I don’t. I was told that I would be charged $1,800 per day [for hospital care]. Nurses here told me that I should end my life. That shocked me.”
That conversation took place two years ago, at which point Foley was $2m in debt. According to Schadenberg, “His current situation is unchanged.”
Kaplan ends the article by providing more information about Roger Foley:
In a recent video, conducted by Amanda Achtman of the Dying to Meet You Project, Foley recalled being offered euthanasia “multiple times.”
In terms of the impact of the suggestion, he said, “It’s completely traumatized me. It’s an overlying option. When I say I am suicidal, I am met with, ‘Well, the hospital has a program to help you with that if you want to end your life.’
“There is not going to be a second within the rest of my life when I will not have flashbacks to it, to the devaluing of me and all that I am … I don’t want to give up my life.”
More information on this topic:
8 comments:
Thank you, Alex for exposing the reality of medical assisted-suicide in Canada. It is destroying the medical profession. I have been following your organization for years and I periodically address these issues in our LifeWatch newsletter, a publication of Alliance for Life International based in the US.
Respect and compassion for needy people and for life is not promoted in a government or health care system that has discarded their moral compass and respect for God, as has happened in Canada imo.
Charging a handicapped patient an exorbitant hospital daily fee is just another cruel way to manipulate that person to want to commit suicide. I wonder when it will no longer be pressured on patients, but will be forced on them?
“When God judges a nation He gives wicked leaders.” (John Calvin)
I've just heard a cancer patient was only in a B.C. hospital 3 days when he was offered MAID. He had a liver problem too, which is totally curable.
Tershia, it's already being forced on people! An older, dear friend of mine (Anita) who lived in the UK was KILLED, in the hospital (in 2018) after she was recovering from a surgery for cancer of the womb. She was doing well with her recovery and supposedly, the surgery had been a success.
In addition, she was told that she could be transferred to a another facility while she fully recovered, they were just waiting for an open bed. Well, that day never came. :(
After a few more days, they told her since she had cancer, they were going to stop giving her food & water! I was shocked, frustrated & outraged! I live in the USA, I wasn't a relative and I could not go to the UK to help defend her or take care of her. :(
I was so grieved, I couldn't BELIEVE they were just going to starve her like that & let her die of thirst! Sadly, that's exactly what they did. It was horrifically CRUEL (to say the least), but they 100% didn't care. Praise GOD, their day of reckoning is coming!
There Is A Lot Of Cruelty Occurring In Canada In All Different Types Of Care Regimes For A Lot Of Different Diagnoses, Age Groups, Etc... ALL THE CRUELTY IS IN VERY SIMPLE TERMS "WRONG" AND "IMMORAL"; Any Pressure To With-Hold Treatment Because The Belief Of "SOME" Being That Death Is Better Than Providing Care Is WRONG AND IMMORAL; All These People Whether Physicians, Nurses, Other Staff Promoting These Ideas And Pressuring Vulnerable People Simply Just Waiting For Care Is COMPLETELY INSANE AND WRONG ON ALL LEVELS; These People Doing This Evil Know Who They Are, And In Simple Terms ARE BULLIES NOT CAREGIVERS, THEY DO NOT DESERVE THE TITLE "CAREGIVERS" BUT THE TITLE OF BULLIES AND MURDERERS IN SIMPLE ENGLISH!!!
I Know This Is Going On Everywhere In Canada And It Is Unfortunate As It Is Disgusting And Manipulative; This Is The Opposite Of The Title Of "Caregivers" And Really This Evil Has No Place In A Democratic Society; All These Individuals Whether Physicians, Nurses, Other Staff, Etc...Should Be BANNED AND PERMANETLY REMOVED From Their High-Paying Positions; Nobody Should Ever Have To Go Through This, Nobody No Individual, No Patient, No Family Members, No Friends, Nobody!!! Nobody Needs To Go Attempt To Receive Care And Help And Be TOLD "NO GO GET HELP TO DIE OTHERWISE YOU ARE SELFISH"; THIS IS NOT RIGHT ON ALL LEVELS AND PREVIOUSLY WOULD BE CRIMINALIZED AND PENALIZED HOW IS IT THIS EVEN OKAY TO TALK TO ABOUT, LET ALONE THESE MONSTERS PRESSURING PEOPLE!!!
Ms.Hancock's story of the nurse's words and attitude doesn't surprise me at all. I've had similar experiences in different medical situations.
Some nurses and doctors seem so detached from the world they presume their patient occupies, it can be like they're almost alien - alienated from their own humanity and the patient's by what their training and careers has done to them.
And the word selfish by proper definition only means acting in one's self-interest, not sacrificing someone else's interest in the process. That's what the nurse seemed like she was attempting to do to Ms.Hancock. I'm very wary of people who misdefine and misuse that word as a device to manipulate other people.
Yes, Terence Love You Are Absolutely Right!!! These Physicians, Nurses, Specialists, "Other Staff", Groups Who Promote Assisted Suicide And Euthanasia Are Manipulative Human Rights Abusers Who Are Bullies And Who Are Selfish Themselves For Their Own Interests!, And Without Any Morals Aggressively Pushing To Justify Homicide And Murder!!!
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