Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Well, I think you should be aware of the extreme difficulties in actually deciding when and how to do this. I think there's little evidence that shows that doing it this way or that way, or defining some kind of arrangement between two people, will sort out the problems. Life is

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Oh, thank you. What we want to do is to have a system where you.... We know that all provinces have to rely on accreditation of their organizations. Therefore, you can put in place standards and measures of the quality of palliative care. You can also enact symptom screening a

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  I think it would be incredibly challenging. My work in long-term care has taught me that usually people who arrive in long-term care will often last longer than you think. It will be more complicated than you think. Trying to make it out as a simple exchange between two people is

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  I was hoping someone would ask me, but I can't do it in 20 seconds. It's about how we could improve palliative care because, through accreditation, we could expand standards and screening for distress throughout all chronic diseases. That is the way to enforce this: through acc

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  I tend not to base things on one case or the rare case or things like that. I think we have to make policy that will manage for most Canadians. I often think, as we do in medical situations when we talk about benefits and risks, that it's very compelling to say, “Gosh, take me ou

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  It's partially because of that, but it's also because they may not have the same degree of suffering and they may have adapted to things. It's extremely hard for someone else to judge, particularly when people are unable to communicate as well as they used to.

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Thank you very much for the question. I heard that comment. I think there is a huge challenge because of things I mentioned in my commentary. We know from about 30 or 40 years of research into effective forecasting that people tend to think things will always be worse in the fu

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Okay. Parliament has voted three times in favour of funding a palliative care strategy. It's 2022, and it's yet to be implemented. Canadians will suffer with life-limiting illnesses whether they access MAID or die naturally. They are counting on all of you to ensure quality and

Medical Assistance in Dying committee  Thank you to the joint committee for allowing me to speak. I'm a retired physician with over 25 years of experience in providing palliative care in all locations of care. I've been an attending physician and palliative care consultant to people with dementia, as well as physici