MAID

I'm headed out to a seminar on Medical Assistance In Dying. The seminar begins at 1:30 PM so I'm pushing my luck in writing right now. On the other hand, it might be like being late for my own funeral. There has to be a joke in that somewhere. Regardless, this seminar will cover the rules for medical assistance in dying here in Alberta.

It's important to recognize that people who make this choice don't make it lightly. Although it is legal to have a medically assisted death here in Canada, there is still a lot of social and religious pressure against it. In Vancouver recently, a man in the latter stages of a terminal cancer, with no hope of remission or treatment, was refused a medically assisted death because the hospital, St. Paul's, is owned by a Catholic organization who view medically assisted death as committing suicide, or murder, both of which the Catholics consider a grievous sin. In fact the Catholic Church has gone so far as to say that people who choose MAID may not be buried in hallowed ground.

That left this poor, unfortunate soul have to be transferred while in great pain, to a facility where he could die in peace, with dignity, without pain. I can tell you for a fact that all of these deaths are medically assisted. Sufficient levels of morphine needed to deal with the pain are always high enough to suppress breathing and heart rate to low enough levels to end life. Everything else is just plain hypocrisy. As the doctor said at my own Dad's death, sometimes you have to expedite things.

That's why I am going to this seminar. I want my ducks in a row. I want to know what the rules are, so that when the time comes I don't have to die in unfamiliar surroundings, with other people deciding things for me, in pain and discomfort. I want to die peacefully, quietly, in my sleep. I simply want to go to sleep one night, and not wake up the next morning. I may need MAID for that.