The incalculable cost of assisted suicide laws

In June 2016, Bill C-14 (the legislation on medical assistance in dying) received royal and assent and a new medical service became available to Canadians. This legislation provides some Canadians (patients) with the legal option to request medical assistance in dying and other Canadians (physicians and nurse practitioners) with the legal authority to provide that assistance. But at what cost?

The financial costs related to medical assistance in dying are relatively inexpensive. Physician’s fees have not yet been determined, but an interim document lists the cost at $ 440.05 for a general practitioner and  $519.08 for a specialist. The drugs themselves will cost about $300. In British Columbia, for example, participating drug stores will charge a $60 to $100 “clinical services” fee for dispensing the oral or IV drug regimen plus a backup- in case the patient fails to die.

The social costs of medical assistance in dying might be higher.

First, much has already been said about safeguards that may never be. Already a BC court case seeks to “strike down” as unconstitutional the provision in C-14 that states a person’s “natural death must be reasonably foreseeable” to qualify for death by lethal injection. In time, treatable chronic illnesses may become eligible for this irreversible “treatment.”

Second, there are concerns about harm to vulnerable persons. For example, in 2004, a British nurse tried to murder four of her elderly patients in a ruthless drive to free up hospital beds. In April 2015, a Czech nurse admitted to killing six patients to decrease her workload.  A 2015 Ontario coroner’s report that examined deaths at long-term care facilities, included 13 that were considered homicide in 2013 and 2014. Will legalized killing become the precarious road we take to unburden an overtaxed Canadian healthcare system? I have witnessed first-hand the ways that the Government tries to claw back on medical costs. I worry that medical assistance in dying might offer them an easier and faster way of reducing the cost of healthcare services.

Read here