Excuse me for interrupting. That is not what the expert panel’s report says.
The expert panel’s report makes it very clear that just because someone raises their hand and says they want medical assistance in dying does not mean they will be eligible. To determine whether people are eligible for medical assistance in dying, the report sets out a series of principles and precautions that must be considered. As such, it is not true that simply refusing treatment is sufficient to qualify for medical assistance in dying. This report tells us the opposite.
I imagine that if you are an expert on schizophrenia, or, in any case, if you have cured everyone struggling with schizophrenia, you are truly qualified to receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine. However, schizophrenia is also a disease that is not easily treated. It is possible that you might lose a patient. It is possible that after 30 years, a patient might have had enough, because their suffering has not been alleviated.
What we are saying here is that there is no question of considering that a patient who is in a suicidal state should have access to medical assistance in dying. Assessing decision-making capacity seems to be a specialty of psychiatrists, and some of your colleagues tell us that it is entirely possible to do things by the book, which you claim is not possible.
I agree with you that we need more resources to treat people and that we need to be even more proactive and provide care early on, but these are two completely different issues. Here, the question is whether we should continue to keep someone who is at the end of their rope in palliative care indefinitely—which is all you are capable of doing, since you do not cure the person.