MAID Concerns - How Will Our Politicians Respond?

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Did you go to a hospital or just some other form of acute care clinic?
Hospital. Like I said, they slapped a splint on me and sent me off - with a prescription for T3s. A nurse gave me a card or phone number on a piece of paper, for the community service - she caught us on the way out. It was busy in the ER.
They asked me on the phone if I could make my own sandwiches (over the phone questionnaire), but since I was in a position of “I can, if I’m seated in the right spot and stuff in is front of me, if I have to, but I’m in a lot of pain moving. Carrying stuff from the fridge, I can’t do ”...so wasn’t really an applicable question - making a sandwich is one thing. Getting things out of the fridge is another. (Actually, I could with my walker - just set things on the seat of it. I’m used to carrying things using my walker. Maybe it was because I was already skilled with my walker?! No, I can’t use stairs, but I was set up, upstairs anyway. I told them I have CP. every single care professional and my family who spoke to anybody knew and/ or said so...And it was about 10 days, before anyone came in person.

The sad part is my dad was with me at the hospital - maybe they thought I was in good hands by the way he spoke - but he wasn’t going to be looking after me...just dropped me off at my mom and stepdads place after. Who knows, maybe he minimized it with saying something like “she‘ll be alright. She’s a trooper!” “she’s tough!”...something along those lines. I don’t remember but that’s the kind of thing he might say. Not meaning anything bad by it.
 
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Maybe it was because I was already using a walker and skilled with it. My mobility was slowed way down, and very painful...but otherwise, maybe to them, “using a walker is using a walker”.
 
I suspect you're right about your assessment of the situation @Kimmio Laughterlove. I spent several hours in that Emerg with my sister and brother-in-law last year when she had her stroke. It was interesting to overhear the different conversations and ways the nurses and docs were responding to things. I suspect (hope) you would have been treated differently if they saw you as vulnerable and less competent. Of course competency is a double edge sword. It has helped you in many ways. It has also cursed you as it did at that time.

When I had my foot surgery I was capable of feeding myself. Standing up, assembling the meal, etc was another story. My situation wasn't even close to yours and my small physical impairment impacted my independence.

This shows how important it is for us to advocate for ourselves or someone we trust to advocate for us.

I've been thinking about MAID lately. I'd like to see a scenario where someone can freely chose it where they can. I'd like to see vulnerable people like Matthew or possibly someone like our frail elderly parents are safe from pressure. There really needs to be good social supports available. I'm thankful my father had those supports when he broke his hip even though we were geographically distant from him.

It's tough.
 
Another thing is it was really difficult and painful to get up and down from sitting or lying position. To get dressed. I worked out a system to put my socks on, somehow. I can’t remember how. Every little thing. Even up and down from the toilet. Even with bars in the bathroom. I don’t have the same balance and control to begin with. It took me 10 minutes to get up from bed and get to the bathroom in the room next door. Sometimes 10 minutes to get up and another 5-10 to get there. Could I “do it”? Yes. Technically I could because I did. Once I fell and peed myself trying to get to the toilet and get my pants off, and two senior parents had to pick me up. And it was really awkward. Should I have had more help? Yes. Help to do a few other things, to save me energy. Anyway... Enough about that.
 
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I suspect you're right about your assessment of the situation @Kimmio Laughterlove. I spent several hours in that Emerg with my sister and brother-in-law last year when she had her stroke. It was interesting to overhear the different conversations and ways the nurses and docs were responding to things. I suspect (hope) you would have been treated differently if they saw you as vulnerable and less competent. Of course competency is a double edge sword. It has helped you in many ways. It has also cursed you as it did at that time.

When I had my foot surgery I was capable of feeding myself. Standing up, assembling the meal, etc was another story. My situation wasn't even close to yours and my small physical impairment impacted my independence.

This shows how important it is for us to advocate for ourselves or someone we trust to advocate for us.

I've been thinking about MAID lately. I'd like to see a scenario where someone can freely chose it where they can. I'd like to see vulnerable people like Matthew or possibly someone like our frail elderly parents are safe from pressure. There really needs to be good social supports available. I'm thankful my father had those supports when he broke his hip even though we were geographically distant from him.

It's tough.
Yet, I don’t think it’s ever going to be a free choice with lack of help. For example, those who have won the right to have it if and when they decide to, and already have the forms stamped, and it’s about physical not mental capacity...they can go on knowing an easy exit is there, living with support as long as they choose, they can afford to, and they have an easy way out if they have had enough social discrimination from themselves and others, instead of dealing with it and helping others beat discrimination - they are in a completely different situation than someone with no options. Actually the Truchon Gladu case is an example of the two different scenarios, on purpose. But the vulnerable side was deliberately ignored. And it’s really selfish to be granted the right to die at the expense of others right to live. They are connected. It does matter. None of us is an island. They were even legally connected in the court case, symbolically - forever linked - and the much less empathetic side won. The public made their choice about who was more important. It’s almost biblical.
 
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Vulnerability is only a paycheque or two away, for most people. But vulnerability is especially more acute if one is disabled and poor.

It was another “victory” for the wealthy, is what it was/ is. I don’t think it was consciously about wealth, though - even though that’s the case...just not empathetic. Pretty much everyone is going to be negatively affected by it at some point though. First they came for...
 
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And it doesn’t even matter that secular people didn’t catch the biblical aspect of any of it (a lot of “churched” people didn’t either). Because they ignored the UN, too. The UN Delaration on Human Rights was made after WW2...to ensure “never again”, and was a work in progress - a living document - to make sure everyone’s rights are recognized irrespective of religion and socioeconomic status and race and gender, and disability etc. We entered a commitment to it, and failed.
 
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Sixty-nine per cent of respondents to the Ipsos web-based poll, commissioned by the advocacy group Dying with Dignity Canada, favoured removing the provision that allows assisted dying only for people whose natural deaths are “reasonably foreseeable.”

(Of course they commissioned it.)

No mention about the UN warnings there. It's probably safe to assume there was no mention of them in their survey, either.
 
I suspect you're right about your assessment of the situation @Kimmio Laughterlove. I spent several hours in that Emerg with my sister and brother-in-law last year when she had her stroke. It was interesting to overhear the different conversations and ways the nurses and docs were responding to things. I suspect (hope) you would have been treated differently if they saw you as vulnerable and less competent. Of course competency is a double edge sword. It has helped you in many ways. It has also cursed you as it did at that time.

When I had my foot surgery I was capable of feeding myself. Standing up, assembling the meal, etc was another story. My situation wasn't even close to yours and my small physical impairment impacted my independence.

This shows how important it is for us to advocate for ourselves or someone we trust to advocate for us.

I've been thinking about MAID lately. I'd like to see a scenario where someone can freely chose it where they can. I'd like to see vulnerable people like Matthew or possibly someone like our frail elderly parents are safe from pressure. There really needs to be good social supports available. I'm thankful my father had those supports when he broke his hip even though we were geographically distant from him.

It's tough.
Not everybody has somebody who can or knows how to advocate for them or who even wants to, and that could make the situation worse. I’ll bet lots of people have lived - just barely - through injuries like I had, with nobody to help them at all. And that’s just not good enough.

in fact Roger Foley ended up in the hospital because his carers food poisoned him with rotten food and dragged him across the floor, injuring him. He wanted to hire his own home care team with funding from an existing program to to so. He was told nursing home, or MAiD. So, he stayed in hospital in protest. The people who put him in hospital should’ve been arrested. He shouldn’t have had to be in the hospital in the first place, and he certainly shouldn’t have been offered MAiD. He was paid the first UN rapporteur visit that put Canada on the radar for human rights abuse. I hope he sues the hell out of everybody involved, for his own self, actually. He’s somebody who deserves a big personal “win”. He’s been selfless the whole time he‘s been struggling - raising attention for the collective good, instead of suing those who harmed him - including docs who offered MAiD - outright, for damages.

Before Roger Foley became severely disabled, he worked as a mid level professional. If that helps humanize him or make him more relatable for anyone reading.
 
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Not everybody has somebody who can or knows how to advocate for them or who even wants to, and that could make the situation worse. I’ll bet lots of people have lived - barely - through injuries like I had, with nobody to help them at all. And that’s just not good enough.

I know. That's sad and sadly that's life. Patient advocates or good social workers can be replacements if done right. Not ideal. Better than no support, if done well.
 
Yes, these cutbacks are related to this topic. They will be after the cuts happen and people can’t pay out of pocket for their treatments. And then there will likely be more cuts to more necesssary services and treatments that are currently paid for, for everyone. Leaving bare bones for most, and great services for the wealthy. And that will inevitably lead to more MAiD. It’s obvious.

 
Yes, these cutbacks are related to this topic. They will be after the cuts happen and people can’t pay out of pocket for their treatments. And then there will likely be more cuts to more necesssary services and treatments that are currently paid for, for everyone. Leaving bare bones for most, and great services for the wealthy. And that will inevitably lead to more MAiD. It’s obvious.


I'm so glad I stayed in BC for my treatment rather than going back to AB. :mad:
 
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