Ableism is mentioned in several different components of the curriculum. The most notable would be in topic four, which assesses capacity and vulnerability. There are specific bits within the curriculum that deal with ableism.
I'll finish with some advice we provide to assessors and providers.
The first is that they acknowledge that persons with a disability requesting MAID have experienced trauma and that the medical system and society at large may have contributed to this. This would be an acknowledgement that this exists for a person with a disability.
The second is avoiding presumptions about their experience and making sure they're engaged in specific and detailed conversations within the context that the patient will allow us to be involved. Sometimes that involves collaboration with other health professionals, social workers, case workers and people they have been involved with.
The third and perhaps most important part is to try to distinguish between the suffering caused by the medical illness, disease or disability and the suffering caused by injustice, discrimination, stigma and exclusion. That's hard to do. They can be interwoven.
There's no perfect answer to this; I will agree with that, but we must—