I've taken the liberty of writing this down.
First of all, advice: no expansion or widening of the laws or other bills until you understand what's really happening on the ground here.
The second thing is that no patient should be considered eligible for or offered MAID when they're in acute care. It's offensive. They're already in there, they're vulnerable already and that's just not an appropriate thing to do.
Also, make it necessary for practitioners to consult with family and friends and other close contacts during MAID applications and assessment processes. This is just common sense in the ability for a medical team to proceed with due diligence, to obtain all the necessary information on individuals applying for MAID. This is extremely important for vulnerable individuals like Alan, with disabilities and mental illness. We're talking death here. It can't be death on demand.
Form a federal independent review board, a group that could attend to any suspicious.... We had no one to turn to. We have written over 40 letters, to the Prime Minister, to the Honourable David Lametti.... We have written so many letters trying to find out, to give us one reason why Alan was allowed MAID.
Is it because he signed a form and he had hearing loss...? That's not good, not good enough. How many other Canadian families are going to have to go through what our families had to go through until these MAID laws are concrete and definitive, there is no grey area and they're not ambiguous? We need to address the concerns of the medical teams in adequately addressing MAID requirements before the MAID is implemented.
Also, finally, I would like to add that individuals filing for MAID, before they're approved, should have to exhaust reasonable assistance in care. Alan didn't even get a chance to have assisted living. He didn't want that, because he wasn't sure what it was really about and how it would help him in his current state of depression. I asked the nurse.... Well, actually, I asked the doctor that day. I said, “You have to stop this.” She said, “What do you want me to do, Trish? What would you have me do?” I said, “Look—this hospital has had Alan for 38 days and kept him away from our family. You give our family 38 days and I can guarantee you that you are going to have a different result. Alan has been depressed before. He has experienced this before, and he has always come back, so you're making a mistake.”
To put somebody, to literally have.... I want you to imagine that this is your brother who has had mental depression, and you are begging doctors not to take his life.