Recent attacks launched at palliative care doctors at Montreal and McGill University Medical Centres, have triggered a reaction from scientist, Odile Marcotte. Both centres have been reproached by politicians, pro-euthanasia doctors and journalists alike because “they do not comply with Quebec law”, which authorises “medically assisted dying”,and “do not respect patient autonomy in exercising their ‘right’ to receive three injections which could result in death within a short period of time” (see Euthanasia imposed on health centres in Belgium and Canada).
However, “the doctors who provide palliative care in these institutions are loyal to the definition of palliative care given by the World Health Organisation, namely to provide relief for patients at the end of life, and not to hasten or postpone death”. Furthermore, palliative care institutions “are no longer obliged to offer euthanasia”.
As far as Odile Marcotte is concerned, “the attacks of intimidators are not aimed at ensuring that patients’ rights are respected but at modifying the nature of palliative care by using methods that they would not use against other groups of specialist doctors”. She stressed that they want “to eliminate any opposition to their ideology because if this were not the case, they would roll up their sleeves and create clinics offering the ‘medical treatment’ to which they attach so much importance”.
Lastly, considering “the waiting times for surgery in Quebec – which are some of the longest in the western world”, Odile Marcotte is surprised by the “obsession surrounding the length of time taken to obtain euthanasia”. This “seeminglyrelentless approach reveals the ideology behind the fight for euthanasia which seeks to undermine the palliative care mission and compromise scheduled investment in this area”. She states that the “patient’s right to palliative care in an establishment where euthanasia is not practised”should take precedence over the “patient’sfamous right to die”.
Le Devoir, Odile Marcotte (11/07/2016)
Le droit à des soins de fin de vie dans un environnement sans euthanasie