That's a very interesting question as well. I have to tell you that, when people ask me what I do for a living, I tell them I'm a medical doctor first and a psychiatrist second. The seat of all psychiatric illness is the human brain, which the last time I looked was part of the body and part of the human experience. Our personality, as we describe it, lies in the frontal lobes of our brain, so I'm very much opposed to this dichotomy between physical illness and mental illness. These are all disorders of the human body—and, in this case, mostly the human brain.
I don't have a problem sorting out whether people should or shouldn't. We have pretty clear criteria that are put down in the legislation. We have new criteria in Bill C-7. Assessment could involve a skilled clinician who knows what they're up to in psychiatry and a second assessor, and maybe even talking to the family doctor and to the patient's family. These assessments take literally hours and involve a wide variety of people—the patient, the doctor, a couple of assessors and the patient's family.
I can remember one assessment I did, in which I spent three hours talking to each of the children of a man who was seeking MAID. I want to make sure of what everybody's opinion is. In the end it's up to the individual person, but we want to listen to what other people have to say when approaching that decision.