Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Canada: Want help for suicidal thoughts? We'll kill you for free
Hotair ^ | 08/11/2023 | David Strom

Posted on 08/11/2023 9:07:12 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

Dystopia with a smiley face.

That is what Canada has turned into. every day you read a story about the government or the health care system (one and the same) offering death as a public service.

It’s ghoulish.

A Canadian woman seeking help for suicidal thoughts was reportedly told to consider Medical Assistance in Dying by staff at the Vancouver General Hospital.

The clinician advised the woman that wait times to see a psychiatrist were extremely long.https://t.co/GrCMvMocrB

— ThePublica (@ThePublicaNow) August 10, 2023

Vancouver is the suicide capital of the world these days, which is ironic because it is also an idyllic locale. It is just the sort of place I like to visit, except that now I am likely to be faced with advertisements from funeral homes that offer suicide services with a smile.

The latest outrage I came across was the story of a woman who was seeking suicide prevention help. As somebody familiar with the dangers of major depression I can assure you that suicidal ideation in such cases does not arise from rational considerations in a hopeless condition, but rather from a bout with mental illness that can be resolved through proper treatment.

In other words, people contemplating suicide due to depression can be successfully treated.

Yet there is a shortage of psychiatrists in Canada (and in the US, too, unfortunately) and the wait times can be long. Inpatient treatment is, I assume, expensive for the state to provide. So in lieu of that the Vancouver health care system is offering to help patients off themselves.

A Canadian woman was reportedly offered information on Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) by a clinician at Vancouver General Hospital after seeking medical assistance for suicidal ideations.

Kathryn Mentler, a first-year counselling student, told The Globe and Mail that she went to the hospital in June to get professional help to treat her chronic depression and ongoing thoughts of suicide.

Extremely vulnerable, Mentler, who is 37, was shocked when the clinician asked if she had considered MAID, advising her that wait times to see a psychiatrist are extremely long due to Canada’s “broken” medical system.

This is what counts as medical care in Canada, and it will likely be coming to a hospital near you as well.

Leftism presents itself as the epitome of compassion. But the definition of compassion is a sick and twisted version of what you and I expect when we think of the term.

If a friend showed up at your door and asked for help with suicidal thoughts the last thing that would pop through your mind is to offer to help do the deed.

Yet that is the response of Canadian doctors. “I can cure your pain forever with this one little shot.”

This is not the first time MAID has raised questions about its ethics. As previously reported by The Publica, a 47-year-old Toronto woman suffering from severe anorexia was encouraged by her psychiatrist to research medically assisted suicide in 2021.

Lisa Pauli, who weighs just 92lbs, explained in an interview with Reuters that her anorexia has made it difficult to perform daily tasks like carrying groceries and doing laundry.

“Every day is hell … I’m so tired. I’m done,” she said, “I’ve tried everything. I feel like I’ve lived my life.” Despite many people pleading with her to get help, Pauli explains: “She would rather die than recover and gain weight.”

A 33-year-old paraplegic woman and single mother of three similarly announced she had applied for assisted suicide because it was “easier to access than the support services” she needed, according to The Publica.

Canadians have been very proud of their government-run healthcare system, and simply assume that the people running it are doing so with the best interests of the patients at heart.

I see little evidence of that. Instead what I see is a government that embraces the happy and healthy and encourages to pay their taxes to keep the system up and running, but rushes to dispose of people once their usefulness to the regime is exhausted. People who are sick, disabled, mentally ill, or poor are drains on resources and are easier to dispose of.

Socialism always works this way. It promises the moon and delivers an airless vacuum of despair to people who are not useful and compliant.

America’s healthcare system is broken as well, shot through with paperwork, bureaucracy, and other inefficiencies that attend to any third-party payer system. But at least so far the incentives to dispose of inconvenient patients don’t seem as prominent. But as government pays for more and more of the freight the incentives will increase.

It is a mystery why so many people assume that government programs can ever be compassionate. It’s not like our day-to-day experiences with large bureaucracies of any kind are positive, no less government bureaucracies. We deal with nameless and faceless people and get treated as nameless and faceless malfunctioning widgets.

And now as disposable ones.



TOPICS: Canada; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 50shadesofschiavo; canada; euthanasia; lebensunwertesleben; lifeunworthyoflife; suicide; uselesseaters
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-22 next last

1 posted on 08/11/2023 9:07:12 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Saves on healthcare. It’s inevitable when you are looked upon as a cost and not a customer, that the government wants to reduce costs by invoking early deaths however they can.


2 posted on 08/11/2023 9:10:13 PM PDT by Jonty30 (If liberals were truth tellers, they'd call themselves literals. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

3 posted on 08/11/2023 9:10:50 PM PDT by Drew68 (Ron DeSantis for President. A conservative who fights and wins.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

Not sure I can entirely ascribe this to socialism. The notion of encouraging suicide has always struck me as an extreme libertarian sort of position. The only person I ever met who talked like this was no kind of leftist or socialist but an Ayn Rand disciple.

Also I keep reading these articles about widespread assisted suicide in Canada but I never encounter any actual cases of it remotely associated with my own life. There was no hint of it in a recent encounter with doctors and nurses in a hospital. Nor was there any of the oft-quoted drawbacks with our health system. It seemed that my spouse received timely and professional care for a fairly serious health event and the follow-up has been good.

Sorry to insert facts into a FR thread, I know it’s bad form.

Carry on inventing stuff without ever visiting the country.


4 posted on 08/11/2023 9:16:56 PM PDT by Peter ODonnell (It's tough non-work but somebody (Congress) has not to do it. )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Death is the ultimate “cost containment”

/s


5 posted on 08/11/2023 9:18:06 PM PDT by lightman (I am a binary Trinitarian. Deal with it!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Sounds like a lot of the Medical Canucks are encouraging suicide in hopes of increasing their odds to be able to get Taylor Swift tickets during her trip to Canada.


6 posted on 08/11/2023 9:32:05 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer ("There's no cryin' in baseball and there's no ethics in politics!" )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Whatever lefties touch, they ruin.


7 posted on 08/11/2023 9:33:23 PM PDT by No name given (Anonymous is who you’ll know me as )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Cull the herd. Just like the NHS did with my late FIL.


8 posted on 08/11/2023 9:36:58 PM PDT by RushIsMyTeddyBear ("Equity" = "All animals are equal. Some animals are more equal than others.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
Medical Assistance in Dying

It's a MAD world.

9 posted on 08/11/2023 9:43:08 PM PDT by sauropod (I will stand for truth even if I stand alone.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

I wish, for the life of me, remember a movie a few years back.

There was a dinner party of Nazis and a female member was going on about the disabled were guilty of pulling off money from the state to treat.


10 posted on 08/11/2023 9:44:01 PM PDT by RushIsMyTeddyBear ("Equity" = "All animals are equal. Some animals are more equal than others.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

from 2022:

Assisted suicide deaths in Canada jumped 32% from last year: Gov’t data

“10,064 assisted deaths in 2021, up from 7,603 in 2020, 5,661 in 2019, 4,480 in 2018, 2,838 in 2017, and 1,018 in 2016.”

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/assisted-suicide-deaths-in-canada-jumped-32-from-last-year-govt-data/


11 posted on 08/11/2023 9:46:59 PM PDT by proust (All posts made under this handle are, for the intents and purposes of the author, considered satire.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Peter ODonnell

What the hell are you talking about ?

There was over 10,000 in 2021. And it has grown dramatically since then.

For a USA comparison that would be over 100,000.

https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/publications/health-system-services/annual-report-medical-assistance-dying-2021.html#chart_3.1


12 posted on 08/11/2023 9:58:42 PM PDT by Reverend Wright ( Everything touched by progressives, dies !)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

“Kathryn Mentler, a first-year counseling student...”


13 posted on 08/11/2023 10:19:52 PM PDT by A strike (Words can have gender, humans cannot.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Peter ODonnell

‘The notion of encouraging suicide has always struck me as an extreme libertarian sort of position.” Boy are you confused !

“Carry on inventing stuff without ever visiting the country.”
Take off, eh


14 posted on 08/11/2023 10:26:41 PM PDT by A strike (Words can have gender, humans cannot.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Peter ODonnell
That I must reply in defense of libertarians on any matter is painful lolz.. but actually appropriate here.

As pesky as libertarians are we do need to credit them, at least the otherwise right leaning ones, on one thing: as much as they will assert their right to blow their own brains out with a gun if they so choose, they are not going to support the power structure pimping suicide, especially a socialized health care system.

Anyways, I don't know how "widespread" assisted suicide is claimed to be. The articles I've seen point more to the rate of its expansion and promotion, not that it's already at this moment someone one out of every three households is already affected.

15 posted on 08/11/2023 10:48:00 PM PDT by Right Wing Vegan (Conservatism's last hope, last recourse, in fact last expedient, against the libertarian hordes)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Peter ODonnell
Sorry to insert facts into a FR thread, I know it’s bad form.

There were 13,500 assisted suicides in Canada in 2022. That's actually a significant number. That would translate to about 120,000 deaths in the United States.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12166823/Canada-track-record-busting-year-euthanasia-deaths-35-jump-13-500-cases.html

16 posted on 08/12/2023 2:08:55 AM PDT by Right_Wing_Madman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
Lisa Pauli, who weighs just 92lbs, explained in an interview with Reuters that her anorexia has made it difficult to perform daily tasks like carrying groceries and doing laundry.

She doesn't need help with depression or suicidal thoughts.

She needs counseling for why she's anorexic. Deal with the issues that are causing that and the rest should resolve.

Also, likely she's nutrient deficient. That can cause depression and mental health issues as well.

17 posted on 08/12/2023 2:52:53 AM PDT by metmom (He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
Our left is bad…evil even. The commonwealth leftists—woke are off the deep end, even worse than ours. Must remember Karl Marx lived in UK when he wrote Das Capital. PS Story going around on Twitter how a 16 year old girl is being charged for a hate crime because she commented an obviously dyke police officer that she looked gay—in the UK. Said she looked like her “nana”. The English cop: IMG-8803
18 posted on 08/12/2023 4:36:48 AM PDT by Phoenix8
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Peter ODonnell
Houston, we have a problem...

Canada Shatters State-Sponsored Suicide Record

'It was that or go home and prepare to die': Canadians on why they sought surgery outside the country

Canadians with endometriosis spending thousands to cross the border due to long surgery wait times

Gail Kelpin had to wait six months for breast cancer surgery. By then, her cancer had doubled in size. She believes the long wait contributed to her worsening cancer prognosis and the need for a second surgery. Her surgeon conceded she was probably right.

Let's hear it for socialized medicine!

There are none so blind, Peter.

19 posted on 08/12/2023 4:45:43 AM PDT by mewzilla (We will never restore the republic if we don't first secure the ballot box.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Canaduh eh?


20 posted on 08/12/2023 8:33:53 AM PDT by PGalt (Past Peak Civilization?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-22 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson