`An appalling move in the wrong direction'

Re: Ontario wrestles with who gets ICU treatment, Jan. 21, Sharon Kirkey

When COVID-19 arrived in Canada, lockdowns were imposed to protect the vulnerable and ensure the healthcare system would not be overrun. This is still the dominant narrative as we reach the one-year mark in this pandemic.

Protecting the vulnerable, especially those in long-term care facilities, is laudable and right — it speaks of true compassion.

The recommendation by the Ontario COVID-19 Bioethics Table is not only deeply offensive, it raises questions about the entire purpose of the lockdowns in the first place. Is this about caring for the vulnerable or not? If it is then we should be coming up with unique solutions to provide for those who are needy and those who are near death. It is preposterous to suggest that the power to end someone's life be left in the hands of medical personnel who have no personal or relational connection with a patient.

Without minimizing the challenge that this pandemic has presented to the administration of public health in Canada, it would be an appalling move in the wrong direction to now take the “easy” route by simply ending the lives of those deemed not worth living, just because we have not figured out how to care for all our fellow human beings.

NATHAN DENETTE / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES Health-care workers turn a COVID-19 patient who is intubated and on a ventilator from his back to his stomach at Humber River Hospital.