Like I mentioned earlier, you guys spend a lot of time talking about dementia, but dementia disproportionately impacts Black and racialized people who are caregivers and who are staying at home supporting families. You've not heard from Black people living in that situation. Black people are less likely to send family members into long-term care institutions because of how volatile those are, with mistreatment and racism there, too.
Black people who are experiencing medical ableism and medical racism are already worried about being coerced into their treatment plan. For me, even the concept of rejecting surgeries was very difficult for me when I was a young person.
When you already feel that you're being treated differently or you're being othered because of your race—and we already know that a lot of data says that Black people are mistreated and treated differently when they enter a hospital—and you add that into the conversation around MAID, will Black people be pushed into accessing MAID versus other treatments that should be available? I think yes. I don't think we've done enough research to be sure that Black people won't be disproportionately affected.
Throughout COVID, Black people have been predominantly affected and have comorbidities, so we're not sure how this will impact the most marginalized in our communities, but the voices that you have been listening to are predominantly white. That scares me.