Only 1 in 10 requests for a medically assisted death granted, Toronto doctor says
From cbc.ca
While more than 118 people have received a doctor-assisted death since the procedure became legal in Canada, that number likely represents only one tenth of those who made "serious requests" for medical help in dying.
That ratio is drawn from the experiences of Dr. Gary Rodin, who help to draft the procedures and protocols for how hospitals in Toronto's University Health Network agree to grant patients a medically assisted death.
"To give you a rough guide, we could say that for 10 serious requests that would come forward, only actually about one of them would proceed towards this intervention," Rodin told CBC News.
Rodin explained that patients can be denied a medically assisted death for any number of reasons. A person's condition may not be advanced enough to determine if the patient's death is reasonably foreseeable, or a patient may apply for the procedure when they are only 24 to 48 hours away from dying.
In order for a medical institution to grant an assisted-dying request, a process has to unfold that includes a period of reflection, ruling out those in the final day or two of their lives, he said.
CBC News reported Friday that in Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan alone there were 118 medically assisted deaths since the procedure became law June 17.
The Yukon, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Quebec could not, or would not, provide data, while the remaining provinces and territories said there were no instances to report at present.
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