In Canada: Euthanasia is sometimes easier to access than medical treatment

This article was published by National Review online on April 23, 2025.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley J Smith

The Canadian health care system is melting down — and yet the country still embraces radical euthanasia policies.

Here’s a current example: A woman injured in an auto accident has waited nearly two years for a consultation with a spinal surgeon — despite now having to use a wheelchair. So, she wants to come to the U.S. for a simple diagnosis, which will cost $40,000! From the CBC story:

A London woman injured in a car crash says she’s left with no choice but to pay to see a doctor in the United States after waiting almost two years for a diagnosis from an Ontario spine surgeon.

Sydney Gesualdi was rear-ended at a red light in July 2023, after which she was initially diagnosed with whiplash and tissue damage. In the weeks that followed, the 25-year-old lost the ability to walk, started having trouble swallowing and speaking, and had numbness in her face and limbs.

“None of these symptoms have gone away, and it’s been almost two years,” Gesualdi said. “I’m 25 and I can’t walk.”

She now has to use a wheelchair and wears a neck brace at all times. Gesualdi’s family physician has referred her to eight doctors at spinal clinics across the province, but so far, she’s been denied a consultation.

CBC News has seen the rejections from Toronto Western Hospital, London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) and Trillium Spine Centre. Wait times and heavy caseloads are cited as the reason for not taking the patient, as well as the condition potentially being outside the scope of practice. 

What a bitter tragedy. Ill and disabled Canadians with non-life-threatening but serious conditions have no assurance of prompt medical care, and some people wait in agony for many months — or, as in this case, years — to receive proper clinical services.

At the same time, in Canada, disabled and non-terminally-ill patients are eligible for euthanasia, and the homicide can take place within 90 days of the patient’s being deemed qualified. For patients whose deaths are “reasonably foreseeable,” there is no waiting time required once eligibility has been established.

It may also be far less difficult to secure a death doctor than a treating physician, since the killing process is much faster. As a result, there have already been cases in which euthanasia was chosen by patients precisely because proper care was so long in coming. What a travesty.

The U.K. has some of the same access problems, and it is perilously close to legalizing assisted suicide anyway. Meanwhile, assisted suicide might become legal in Delaware and perhaps other blue states this year.

None are so blind as those who refuse to see.