DOCTOR IN CHARGE OF ASSISTED DYING OPPOSES PRACTICE
Proponents worried by opinion of expert doctor tasked to implement system
In a strange illustration of the conflicting forces at play in the assisted-death debate, the Calgary doctor heading implementation of the service in Alberta is personally opposed to the concept, calling it “the wrong direction to go as a society.”
Dr. Eric Wasylenko admitted this week he’s had some sleepless nights over his role in making available what the Supreme Court of Canada ruled was a constitutional right.
But he says he’s committed to helping develop an effective, safe system and respects those with opposing views.
Not everyone is totally convinced.
With questions swirling about access to assisted-death in the province, one advocate said Wasylenko’s job as chairman of the Alberta Health Service’s secretariat on “preparedness for physician-assisted death” is a concern.
“I think it absolutely raises some red flags,” said Brad Peter, an Edmonton-based director of Dying with Dignity. “If Alberta was to get this wrong now, this would be an absolute tragedy, and an embarrassment.”
Peter said there are already other, troubling currents. Most of the publicly funded palliative care services in Alberta, well positioned to provide assisted death, are run by Covenant Health, a Catholic organization that says it will have nothing to do with the process.
Then there was the experience of a Calgary woman who became the first in Canada this week to obtain a court order allowing her to undergo assisted death, the process for patients who want the service before the new law is implemented in June.
The woman who was dying from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Lou Gehrig’s disease, was forced to travel to British Columbia to receive a lethal injection after being unable to find a doctor in her hometown willing to help.
“We know a lot of people, put out a lot of feelers,” said Mary Vanetich, a friend of the woman and social work professor emerita at the University of Calgary. “Nobody was coming out with names.”
But Wasylenko said there are, in fact, doctors in Calgary and elsewhere in Alberta prepared to take part in the process, and stressed other experts on the secretariat strongly support assisted death.
“We’re all working together to get it as right as possible,” he said.
Vanetich said Wasylenko called her Wednesday to offer his condolences. She now believes he can put aside his beliefs and fulfil the official role, but still finds the contrast between them odd.
“I was puzzled. I thought … why would you have someone (opposed to assisted death) in this position?” she said. “I thought this was really unusual.”
Wasylenko, a palliative-care physician, bioethicist and University of Calgary lecturer, won the Canadian Medical Association’s 2014 award in medical ethics. Given his experience in end-of-life care, ethics and health policy, the assisted-death appointment was a “natural fit,” he said.
Still, Wasylenko, who would not even refer a patient to another doctor willing to administer assisted-death drugs, said the work does give him pause at times.
“It’s not an easy position for me to be in,” he said. “I have some sleepless nights, and I have to challenge myself everyday to say ‘Have I crossed the line?’”
He said he feels that movement for assisted-death is a modern sociological phenomenon, not a medical imperative.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily the way society should go, to say that certain people can be killed by other people … who are sanctioned by the state,” he said.
“We’ve had the ability to deanimate human beings forever and we’ve had the ability to do that through chemicals for hundreds of years, and yet societies have not said that’s the thing to do.”
Nevertheless, the secretariat has developed a process that is ready to go into effect when the government gives the green light, after public consultation.
Wasylenko said he could not reveal details of the system, but noted there has been discussion across the country of setting up teams headed by a patient “navigator” who would guide people requesting assisted death.