Alex Schadenberg Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
In March CTV News reported that Roger Foley, who lives with cerebellar ataxia, a degenerative neurological condition, has launched a lawsuit naming the London Health Sciences Centre and the Southwest Regional LHIN, stating that they are offering him assisted death (MAiD) but they are not willing to provide him with an assisted life.
TV News has reported that Roger Foley released two audio recordings of medical staff at London Health Sciences Centre urging him to die by assisted death (euthanasia) rather than enable him to receive assistance to live. CTV news reports:
In one audio recording from September 2017, Foley is heard speaking to a man about what he has described as attempts at a “forced discharge,” with threats of a hefty hospital bill.
When Foley asks the man how much he’d have to pay to remain in hospital, the man replies, “I don’t know what the exact number is, but it is north of $1,500 a day.”
...The man is heard saying that the hospital does not use “this conversation in every situation.”
“It is only in situations where somebody has a plan in the community that is feasible that they’re not going to accept and that’s OK,” the man says.
Foley then says that he hasn’t been informed of a plan for his care and that his rights as a patient are being violated.
“You have already violated my preferences…So what is the plan that you know of?” Foley asks the man.
“Roger, this is not my show,” the man replies. “I told you my piece of this was to talk to you about if you had interest in assisted dying.”
The CTV news report also aired the conversation in a second recording from January 2018:
The man is then heard telling Foley that he can “just apply to get an assisted, if you want to end your life, like you know what I mean?”
When Foley says that he is being forced to end his life, the man protests and says that’s not the case.
Candice Lewis
“Oh, no, no, no,” the man is heard saying. “I’m saying if you feel that way…You know what I mean? Don’t get me wrong. I’m saying I don’t want you to be in here and wanting to take your life.”
Alex Schadenberg Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition CTV News reported that Roger Foley, who lives with cerebellar ataxia, a degenerative neurological condition, has launched a lawsuit naming the London Health Sciences Centre and the Southwest Regional LHIN, stating that they are offering him assisted death (MAiD) but they are not willing to provide him with an assisted life.
a government-selected home care provider had previously left him in ill health with injuries and food poisoning. Unwilling to continue living at home with the help of that home care provider, and eager to leave the London hospital where he’s been cloistered for two years, Foley is suing the hospital, several health agencies and the attorneys general of Ontario and Canada in the hopes of being given the opportunity to set up a health care team to help him live at home again -- a request he claims he has previously been denied.
“I have no desire to take up a valuable hospital bed,” Foley explained. “But at this point, it’s my only option.”
Foley has been offered euthanasia (MAiD), but Foley does not want to die - he simply wants to live at home. CTV News reported:
“I have been given the wrong medications, I have been provided food where I got food poisoning, I’ve had workers fall asleep in my living room, burners and appliances constantly left on, a fire, and I have been injured during exercises and transfers, When I report(ed) these things to the agency, I would not get a response.”
“Unfortunately, the Ontario health-care system and the Ontario home-care system has broken my spirit and sent my life into a void of bureaucracy accompanied by a lack of accountability and oversight,”
Foley has asked to manage his own home care team. Doing that is called “self-directed care,” and Ontario recently created an agency called Self-Directed Personal Support Services Ontario (SDPSSO) to help co-ordinate such activities.
“I need self-directed funding in order to return to my home, I need to be able to hire my own workers to build my (home) care to work with me”
Foley's lawyer, Ken Berger, doesn't understand why they have not offered a solution for Foley. Berger stated:
the only two options offered to him have been a “forced discharge” from the hospital “to work with contracted agencies that have failed him” or medically assisted death. Refusing to leave the hospital and unwilling to die by a doctor’s hand, Foley claims he has been threatened with a $1,800 per day hospital bill, which is roughly the non-OHIP daily rate for a hospital stay.
Foley’s statement of claim also alleges that his Charter rights “to life, liberty and security of the person” were violated when he was offered the above options without being given the chance to create a “safe and available self-directed assisted care option that would substantially alleviate his irremediable and intolerable suffering.”
The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition supports Foley's case and all others who require assisted living not "assisted death." We believe in caring for people, not killing.
