Hundreds of area residents have opted for medically assisted death

The number of requests has risen steadily over the years

More than 400 people in Waterloo Region have chosen a medically assisted death since the procedure became legal in Canada.

The Office of the Chief Coroner compiles statistics on all such deaths, which have been legal in Canada since June 2016. In the more than seven years from June 2016 to the end of 2023, 412 people in Waterloo Region have opted for medical assistance in dying (MAiD).

In neighbouring Wellington County, 326 people have chosen MAiD.

The number of MAiD deaths in the region is still small but has risen steadily over the years: 69 people in 2021, 101 in 2022 and 108 in 2023. More than 4,000 people in the region die each year from all causes.

Waterloo Region ranks 12th in total MAiD deaths among 49 counties and regions in Ontario. MAiD was a more common choice in some other areas with smaller populations. Middlesex County (including London) has a slightly lower population than Waterloo Region but has had almost three times as many MAiD deaths since 2016. Windsor-Essex has a population about three-quarters that of the region, but has had 50 more MAiD deaths.

In Ontario, a total of 19,213 people have opted for medical assistance in dying from when it was introduced in June 2016 to February 2024. In March 2021, the law was changed to expand eligibility criteria for MAiD to people whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable. Since that change, there have been 313 such MAiD deaths in the province.

The number of MAiD deaths in Ontario has risen steadily from 839 in 2017 to 4,641 in 2023. MAiD accounted for 1.7 per cent of all deaths in Ontario in 2019, rising to 2.1 per cent in 2020, 2.7 per cent in 2021 and 3.7 per cent in 2022. MAiD accounts for a higher percentage of death in Quebec (6.6 per cent) and British Columbia (5.5 per cent).

The provincial data provides an emerging picture of medically assisted death.

In Ontario, MAiD deaths are evenly split between men and women. The average age is 75; Ontarians who have chosen an assisted death range in age from 18 to 114. More than two-thirds of those getting an assisted death (69.2 per cent) had cancer; 10.6 per cent had neurological diseases like ALS, multiple sclerosis or dementia, and almost four per cent had heart disease.

In 2023, the most recent year for which data is available, most MAiD deaths (53.8 per cent) happened in a private home including a retirement home; 36.7 per cent were in hospital, with the rest about split between palliative care facilities and long-term care homes.

The national data shows that assisted death is a small but growing choice for Canadians.

Assisted deaths in Canada grew by an average of 31.1 per cent each year between 2019 and 2022, as reported in the most recent annual federal report on MAiD. In 2022 alone, just six years after MAID was legalized, MAiD accounted for more than 13,000 deaths, or four per cent of all Canadian deaths.

According to an analysis by the Investigative Journalism Bureau and the Toronto Star, that makes Canada the fastest MAiD adopter in history, outpacing all 10 other countries who offer assisted death to terminal and chronically ill patients. By comparison, it took the Netherlands 14 years before assisted deaths reached four per cent.

Accessing MAID

The law has strict rules about who can access medical assistance in dying.

They must be an adult able to make decisions about their health care, with a “grievous and irremediable medical condition”: they have a serious illness or disability that causes intolerable suffering and are in an advanced state of decline that cannot be reversed. They do not need to have a fatal or terminal condition.

If your only medical condition is a mental illness, you are not eligible for medical assistance in dying until at least March 2027.

The first step is to talk to your doctor. Anyone who decides to proceed with an assisted death must submit a written request witnessed by two people who are not caregivers and who won’t benefit from the death. Two doctors or nurse practitioners must attest that the person is eligible.

There are more safeguards in place in cases where

death is not reasonably foreseeable.

Family members, friends, and personal caregivers have no say in the decision.

Drugs are covered under the provincial health system.

You can change your mind at any time, for any reason.

Ontario has a care co-ordination service that provides information about end-of-life options in Ontario, including information on hospice and other palliative care and medical assistance in dying. Residents of Waterloo Wellington can call the regional MAID care co-ordination service at 310-2222 (no area code needed). The toll-free phone line is available around the clock at 1-866-286-4023.