At the beginning of the revival of the debate: the appearance of Dr. Louis Roy, inspector in charge of professional inspection at the College of Physicians of Quebec, before the Ottawa Joint Special Committee on Medical Assisting in Dying.
dr Roy then reiterated the position of the College of Physicians, which is in favor of extending medical assistance in dying to babies under one year old who are victims of extreme suffering that cannot be alleviated, coupled with very obscure and concerned prognosis severe malformations or severe polysymptomatic syndromes that destroy any chance of survival.
The C-14 medical euthanasia bill, passed in June 2016, is due for review after five years. Therefore, before the Special Joint Committee on Physician Assisted Dying, which includes members of the Senate and House of Commons, the various organizations that wish to be heard on the expansion of this end-of-life care must testify. life, especially children under one year old, adolescents aged 14 to 17 and people with neurocognitive disorders.
On social media and in an article published on the front page of the National Post (new window) on Monday, groups opposed to medical assistance in dying have expressed their concern and dismay at the Collège des médecins du Québec’s stance.
In an interview with Midi info, Dr. Alain Naud, general practitioner specializing in palliative care at the CHU de Québec and board member of the Board of Physicians, to clarify the position of the professional code.
The deliberations of the medical college did not relate to children born with disabilities, but to children born under conditions incompatible with life, Dr Sommer 2021 pointed out, and whose death was obviously inevitable.
The mother publicly testified how extremely painful it was, the agony of this baby, who died at two weeks despite being on morphine regularly, he said.
And the mother asked: In these cases of inevitable death and obvious suffering, why should we put up with watching the baby groan open-mouthed for days and weeks? Why not allow medical euthanasia under these conditions?
Rare, extraordinary and dramatic situations
according to dr Alain Naud’s responses come from militant groups opposed to medical euthanasia, elements of which are often distorted, exaggerated, or outright invented.
For example, the organization Inclusion Canada, which works to integrate people with intellectual disabilities, fears that families of children born with disabilities may face undue pressure to seek medical assistance at the time of death based on diagnoses, who are biased by ableist prejudices.
The organization denounces the inability of children under the age of one to give their informed consent and qualifies the ability to provide end-of-life care as pure and simple murder. Based on this notion of consent, it is feared that such an expansion of medical euthanasia would set an extremely dangerous precedent for all people with intellectual disabilities.
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The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition has no understanding of the need for medical assistance when dying when the child’s chances of survival are nil. Why not just ease the child’s suffering while it awaits natural death? we ask.
The point here is not to talk about medical euthanasia or to assess the quality of life for all babies who are born with some kind of disability, counters Dr. Naud.
“But in these exceptional situations where life is not possible, why not think about it at the request of the parents? »
— A quote from Dr. Alain Naud, general practitioner specializing in palliative care at the CHU de Québec and board member of the Collège des médecins du Québec
Naud would like Canada to take inspiration from the Netherlands, where an extremely strict protocol called the Groningen Protocol has existed since 2005 to frame the decision-making process that can lead to the administration of medical assistance when children die each year, in rare exceptional circumstances that don’t are less dramatic and important.
This is clearly a plea to parents who have experienced this situation. […] and I think society needs to ask these questions and have this debate.