Brigitte Stegemann did not answer the competency questions and the assessor declared her competent anyway.
Executive Director,
Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
On September 20, the Daily Mail published an article by Imogen Garfinkel titled: Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother was euthanized against her will under Canada's assisted dying system.
A lot of people are stating, online, that the story is not true. I have an issue with the title of the article and the claim that the Daily Mail had an exclusive interview, but I can assure you that the story is true.
On July 22, I spoke to Brigitte Kranendonk and then published the article: My Family's Experience with Medical Assistance in Dying. My article reposted with permission the facebook post that Kranendonk posted on her facebook page.
On July 22, Kelsi Sheren spoke with Brigitte Kranendonk and on July 27 published the article: The Last 10 days of Brigitte (GG) Stegemann. On August 17, Kelsi Sheren followed up with another article: The Family filed. Here's the name. Dr Kate Koester.
Terry O'Neill spoke to Brigitte Kranendonk and on July 29 published the article: National MAiD watchdog needed as Provincial oversight failures mount.
Clearly, the Daily Mail story was not an exclusive.
On July 22, I summed up the story with the following key takeaways.
The issues were explained in the original facebook post stating:- Brigitte Stegemann (GG) originally explicitely stated that she didn't want MAiD.
- The medical team had her ask for MAiD when her granddaughter, Brigitte Kranendonk, the legal power of attorney, was on vacation.
- GG was approved even though she was unable to answer the competency questions and she also had serious hearing issues making it hard for her to understand questions.
- The staff filled out the euthanasia forms and witnessesed the signature.
This is our family's account of the systemic failures, lack of transparency, and profound procedural violations we witnessed during the final days of our beloved mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, Brigitte Stegemann, whom we lovingly called "GG."
We are sharing our story because what happened in GG's case was a severe breach of medical ethics, informed consent, and basic human dignity. Decisions of this magnitude demand absolute transparency, strict adherence to legal safeguards, and the meaningful involvement of designated family advocates. In GG’s case, the system failed on every single one of these fronts.
Everything that follows is a truthful account of how the care home and the attending physician systematically bypassed our family, ignored our legal standing, and pushed forward with ending GG's life against her previously stated wishes.
The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition opposes killing all people. All euthanasia (MAiD) deaths contravene medical ethics and are inhumane in their very nature.
The key issue in law that was contravened in the killing of Brigitte Stegemann was her competency. GG could not answer the questions in the competency test but for some reason the doctor declared her competent anyway.
What followed was a deeply alarming farce. Because of GG's severe hearing impairment, Dr. K had to repeat her questions several times, but the barrier was far more than physical hearing. Throughout the assessment, GG repeatedly provided objectively incorrect answers to basic, factual questions about her own life and immediate family.When reading through this account it is clear that Brigitte Stegemann was not competent to request (MAiD) euthanasia and yet was deemed competent anyway. This contravened the law and medical ethics.
When asked if she had any siblings, GG responded that she had none. The family immediately corrected the record, explaining that GG was the second-youngest of fourteen children. Dr. K then asked if any of her siblings were still alive, and GG again answered no. Once more, the family had to intervene and correct the information, explaining that some of her siblings were still living and that GG had spoken to one of them just the previous week. At this point, GG became completely disoriented and distressed. She began to cry, stating, "I forgot about the grandkids," visibly confusing her living siblings with her great-grandkids.
In fact, the family had to step in and correct the vast majority of the answers GG gave during the questioning. Brigitte explicitly objected to the evaluation right then and there, questioning Dr. K directly on how GG could possibly be deemed to have the capacity to consent to death when she could not accurately recount the most basic facts of her own family and was actively breaking down in confusion.
Despite these clear, undeniable indicators of cognitive disorientation and the family's direct objections, the assessment carried forward anyway.
Dr. K then explained MAID to GG in specific terms, describing it, to the best of our recollection, as receiving medication, feeling peace, falling asleep, and explicitly promising GG that she "would not lose control of her bowels." Our family was deeply unsettled by this framing. For an elderly individual of GG's demographic background and cognitive capacity, "medication" was a term conceptually linked entirely to healing, care, and relief. Describing a lethal injection as merely receiving medication—while focusing intensely on her specific, everyday fears of physical indignity—exploited her vulnerability, making it impossible for her to truly grasp that she was consenting to the active termination of her life. Before any further discussion took place, Dr. K instructed all family members to leave the room. Brigitte requested permission to remain, citing her role as long-time advocate and legal Power of Attorney. Her request was flatly denied, and the critical conversation between Dr. K and GG occurred entirely in private.
When Dr. K emerged from the room, she addressed the family and stated flatly, "I have deemed her capable of making her own decisions." She then informed us that GG had consented to proceed and that the procedure was scheduled for Friday, July 10, 2026.
There is another issue from the facebook post, that being how euthanasia was described. The killing doctors intentionally avoid the truth, that is, we will kill you in this manner. GG was told that she would be:
receiving medication, feeling peace, falling asleep, and explicitly promising GG that she "would not lose control of her bowels."
I'm all in also until you tell me that it would kill me.
As stated earlier, Kelsi Sheren also spoke to Brigitte Kranendonk on July 22 and published her article on July 27 about the last 10 days of GG's life.
What the law demands, and what the records must now show.
Strip the anguish out of this account and a set of narrow, documentary questions remains. Each has a paper answer.
Capacity, the Criminal Code requires that a person be capable with respect to decisions about their health at the time of assessment. The family describes a woman with a lifelong, un assessed cognitive impairment, profoundly deaf, freshly emerged from days of unresponsiveness her medication records cannot explain, who failed the factual questions of her own assessment so comprehensively that her family corrected the majority of her answers, and who, the following day, did not understand that “MAiD on Friday” meant she would die. Dr. K’s assessment notes, the MAR log, and the timeline will either withstand that account or they will not.
The request, when was the written request actually signed, who witnessed it, and was the signing before or after the procedure was scheduled? The family says after, completed by the facility’s own manager and witnessed by its staff, in secret. The dated documents will settle it.
Final consent, the code requires that immediately before administering MAiD, the practitioner give the person an opportunity to withdraw and ensure their express consent unless a written waiver of final consent was executed in advance, under the 2021 provision known as Audrey’s Amendment, while the person had capacity. The family was promised express final consent would be required; none was given. That leaves two possibilities and only two. Either the procedure was carried out without the final consent the law demands or a waiver exists that no one ever mentioned to the family, including while assuring them of the very safeguard it would nullify, signed at some point by a woman whose capacity is the central dispute of this case. Produce the waiver. Its date, its witness, and the capacity notes from the day it was signed.
The second assessment. The law requires two independent eligibility assessments. The family’s public account describes one. Who performed the other, when, and in what condition was GG at the time?
Sheren is absolutely correct, the issue of capacity to consent is central to this killing. Sheren also emphasizes the issue of the paperwork, which was also brought up by the original facebook posting and the Daily Mail article.
Sheren explains the issue of final consent. Kelsi is correct when she says that the law was changed in 2021 (Bill C-7) where the law now states that final consent is not necessary so long as the person was capable of consenting at the time of assessment. Sheren explains that the family was told that their grandmother would have the opportunity to say no at the time of the killing, but Brigitte Stegemann did not provide final consent. Sheren states that a waiver of consent is necessary and should exist. There may be no waiver of consent.
Nonetheless, Brigitte Kranendonk witnessed the assessment for capacity and clearly stated that her grandmother (GG) did not answer the capacity questions correctly and was falsely declared competent anyway. This is the primary issue.
Once again, this article concerns the legal parameters not the moral parameters around killing.
The final issue that people are missing when they attack this story is the relationship between Brigitte Kranendonk and her grandmother Brigitte Stegemann.
 |
| A very close relationship |
GG was the mother of two children, Fritz and Karin. For more than twelve years, her granddaughter, Brigitte (who shares her name), devoted herself to GG's care and advocacy. Brigitte held legal Power of Attorney (POA) and served as the primary contact for all medical and personal care decisions.Throughout her stay, Brigitte was contacted frequently by the home—often every day or every other day—to make decisions regarding GG's care. Whether the matter involved medications, treatments, appointments, or other aspects of daily living, the staff consistently relied on Brigitte to make or assist with important decisions on GG's behalf.
Brigitte Stegemann was not just a grandmother, nor was it simply a legal relationship as Kranendonk was her Power of Attorney, this was a deep, caring family relationship.
The key take-away.
1.Two months before her death, the issue of (MAiD) was brought up and Brigitte Stegemann stated:
As a devout Christian, she explicitly expressed that MAID conflicted with her personal beliefs and faith.
2. The issue of euthanasia resurfaced when Brigitte Kranendonk was on a 10-day vacation.
3. Brigitte Stegemann could not answer the questions correctly during the capacity assessment but was declared capable of consenting anyway.
4. Brigitte Stegemann did not provide a final consent before being killed. Was there a waiver of consent?
5. A final issue was how the euthanasia death by botched. The Daily Mail article states:
The nurse struggled to insert the IV into Stegemann's right arm, and ended up piercing her repeatedly with the needle before attempting her left arm.My problem with the Daily Mail article was the title: Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother was euthanized against her will under Canada's assisted dying system.
Kranendonk remembers in graphic detail the copious amount of blood, which made the whole procedure feel strangely unprofessional.
'She's asking us to hand her things, to flush out the needle. So we're now a part of this. She's asking us to grab things for her, and to hold things for her.
'This nurse is not wearing gloves. There's blood all over her hands, there's blood all over the place,' she says, horrified by the memory.
The killing was possibly against her will but the real issue was that Brigitte Stegemann answered the questions, in her capacity assessment wrong and was for some reason declared competent anyway.
All euthanasia (MAiD) is killing, or as Gordon Friesen would accurately state - medical homicide. Brigitte Stegemann was approved even though she was likely incompetent to request it and her previous response, while competent, was that it contravened her religious beliefs. Her earlier comments should have been respected.
No comments:
Post a Comment