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November 7, 2024
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Health-Care ‘Serial Killers’ Could Potentially Abuse Canada’s Assisted Dying Program: Study

The Epoch Times

Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program may be vulnerable to exploitation by “health-care serial killers” due to its permissive safeguards and growing number of patients, a peer-reviewed study says.
Health-care serial killing (HSK) is defined as the intentional, individual, and sequential killing by medical workers—often physicians and nurses—of “helpless or dependent persons under their care,” according to the study published on Aug. 2 in the journal HealthCare Ethics Committee Forum.
The study notes that clinicians involved in HSK often target patients who share the same clinical traits as those eligible for MAID. It raises heightened concern about Canadian law defining MAID as a “non-culpable” form of homicide, exempting practitioners from criminal liability in cases where patient deaths might otherwise raise suspicion, the study says.

“While some patients may be legally eligible for MAiD by meeting the Criminal Code eligibility criteria, their assessors and providers can still have non-clinical or extra-legal motivations to participate, such as sadism, financial gain, misapplied altruism, or ideology,” wrote Christopher Lyon, a Canadian social scientist and author of the study.

Lyon, a research fellow at the University of York in the United Kingdom, notes that Canada lacks an oversight system to review MAID requests, consistent post-death reporting, and a waiting period between approval and death. He also expresses doubt about whether Canadian health-care systems can effectively detect and prevent culpable MAID homicides by relying on self-reported legal compliance or if possible criminal activities are filtered through regulatory bodies before police are involved.

“Canada’s MAiD system is criticized as the most permissive or least safeguarded in the world, raising the question of whether it could protect patients who fit the clinical profile of adult victims of HSK from a killer working as a MAiD provider,” he writes.

Lyon’s study references historical instances of illegal deaths–often linked to euthanasia advocacy groups–before MAID was decriminalized in 2016 and suggests that these past activities may offer insights into how MAID could be exploited today.

Lyon clarifies that his study does not claim criminally culpable homicide, such as murder or manslaughter, is occurring within Canada’s MAID program. Instead, he says it suggests that the current system could allow serial killers to “safely” or legally commit acts of homicide under the guise of MAID.

‘World’s Fastest-Growing Assisted-Dying Program’

Canada’s MAID program, which has seen the number of assisted deaths increase thirteenfold since its legalization, is deemed the world’s fastest-growing assisted dying program, according to Ontario-based think tank Cardus.

In 2016, there were just over 1,000 deaths through MAID. By 2022, the number had surged to over 13,000, accounting for 4.1 percent of all deaths in Canada and making MAID the fifth leading cause of death in the country, according to Health Canada.
In response to Lyon’s report, a Health Canada spokesperson noted the strict eligibility criteria for MAID and the regulations governing health professionals who administer assisted deaths.

“Mandatory requirements that permit physicians or nurse practitioners to lawfully provide MAID in Canada are set out in the Criminal Code. These requirements include stringent eligibility criteria and robust safeguards that must be applied. In addition to the Criminal Code requirements, physicians and nurse practitioners are bound by professional regulatory rules, and their professional ethics,” the spokesperson said in an email statement to The Epoch Times.

“They also have access to additional guidance, including model practice standards and advice to the profession documents, as well as a national MAID curriculum.”

Canada’s MAID regime was expanded in 2020 to allow those whose natural death is not “reasonably foreseeable” to use it as well.
Ottawa has been eyeing further expanding MAID to those whose sole medical condition is mental illness, but has postponed that decision to 2027 for now.

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