In Extreme Measures: Finding a Better Path to the End of Life, Jessica Nutik Zitter, a Montreal-born physician and specialist in critical care medicine, gives a graphic insider’s account of how well-meaning critical care specialists like herself are all-too-apt to inflict futile, unnecessary and agonizing suffering upon dying patients in an intensive-care unit (ICU). To begin with, Zitter describes her first attempt [...]
Dr. Atul Gawande is a renowned surgeon, public-health researcher and medical professor at Harvard. His latest book, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, contains many valuable suggestions for improving the care and treatment of terminally ill patients nearing the end of life. To begin with, Gawande notes that as recently as 1945, most deaths in the United States, Canada, and [...]
Federal Health Minister Rona Ambrose said the government's priority should be quality palliative care, not assisted suicide. Federal Minister of Health Rona Ambrose says Canadians don’t need assisted suicide and euthanasia when it comes to dying, but better palliative care, something she says she wants to make a priority. “I think the starting point for me is that we still [...]
On May 27, 2014, the deVeber Institute for Bioethics and Social Research hosted a seminar on pain and dementia. Entitled “The Problem of Pain in Persons with Dementia: The Challenges of Assessment and Management,” it was attended by personnel from hospitals and care facilities, as well as chaplains and educated family members. Attendees traveled from as far away as Hamilton, Guelph, Maple, [...]
A new study is calling for increased support for family caregivers in Canada. Supporting Caregivers and Caregiving in an Aging Canada by Janice Keefe of the Institute for Research on Public Policy addresses the pressing issue of how to care for an increasing elderly population as the baby boomer cohort continues to age. Currently, much of home care is provided by informal [...]
Parliamentary committee says improve care, Royal Society of Canada calls for legalization of assisted death Just days apart in mid-November two reports dealing with end-of-life care came to diametrically opposed conclusions with a Royal Society of Canada panel calling for full legalization of euthanasia and assisted-suicide while the Parliamentary Committee on Palliative and Compassionate Care made recommendations to improve palliative and end-of-life [...]
A new parliamentary committee is working to find alternatives to euthanasia or assisted suicide for the dying, disabled, and elderly. On April 21, a news conference announced the creation of the Parliamentary Committee on Palliative and Compassionate Care (PCPCC) just hours before Parliament voted down MP Francine Lalonde’s (La Pointe-de-L’Île, BQ) private member’s bill that would have legalized assisted suicide [...]
The week before a parliamentary debate took place on euthanasia and assisted suicide, one of the country’s experts on palliative care spoke to a group of concerned citizens in Ottawa about the issue. Dr. Jose Pereira is a full professor and head of the division of palliative care at the University of Ottawa, medical chief of palliative medicine at the [...]
An injunction preventing Winnipeg’s Grace General Hospital from removing life-sustaining care from Samuel Golubchuk has been upheld by Justice Perry Schulman of the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench. The 84-year-old cognitively disabled patient’s family has been battling hospital doctors who are determined to starve and dehydrate him to death regardless of the family’s wishes. The Winnipeg Free Press reported that Justice Schulman ruled [...]