https://thecritic.co.uk/a-warning-from-canada/
When I heard Andy Burnham recently say that Britain must fix its crisis in social care and palliative care provision before entertaining the introduction of assisted dying I knew, perhaps more than most, how right he was. When campaigners insist that assisted death is simply a matter of “autonomy”, they should study Canada’s experience. As a disabled person in a country where assisted dying is readily available, I have spent years trying to exercise one of the most basic forms of autonomy: the autonomy to live in my own home, with the support I need to do so.
I have been told that the self-directed home care arrangements I need are not available to me within Ontario’s current system. Yet Britain itself recognised the importance of self-directed care decades ago. The UK legislated for direct payments in the 1990s and later established a “right to have” a Personal Health Budget for certain groups in England. Yet access to meaningful self-directed support remains inconsistent, and inadequate funding and provision can still leave vulnerable people in the UK without the support they need to live independently. That is why I agree so strongly with Burnham that Britain’s social care and palliative care systems must be fixed before Parliament even debates assisted dying. When people cannot obtain the support necessary to live safely and with dignity, their choices about death cannot be separated from those circumstances.
When I advocated for the self-directed home care I needed in the Canadian healthcare system, hospital staff members simply presented me with what amounted to two choices: accept an institutional or agency model that would expose me to further harm and readmission, or apply for an assisted death. Although I have made it clear that I want help to live rather than help to die, I have still been asked to consider this final option. Not one, but again and again. I want people in Britain to understand what that feels like: to feel as though you have become such an inconvenience to a strained universal healthcare system that my death is easier to accommodate than the care you need to live.
When I heard Andy Burnham recently say that Britain must fix its crisis in social care and palliative care provision before entertaining the introduction of assisted dying I knew, perhaps more than most, how right he was. When campaigners insist that assisted death is simply a matter of “autonomy”, they should study Canada’s experience. As a disabled person in a country where assisted dying is readily available, I have spent years trying to exercise one of the most basic forms of autonomy: the autonomy to live in my own home, with the support I need to do so.
I have been told that the self-directed home care arrangements I need are not available to me within Ontario’s current system. Yet Britain itself recognised the importance of self-directed care decades ago. The UK legislated for direct payments in the 1990s and later established a “right to have” a Personal Health Budget for certain groups in England. Yet access to meaningful self-directed support remains inconsistent, and inadequate funding and provision can still leave vulnerable people in the UK without the support they need to live independently. That is why I agree so strongly with Burnham that Britain’s social care and palliative care systems must be fixed before Parliament even debates assisted dying. When people cannot obtain the support necessary to live safely and with dignity, their choices about death cannot be separated from those circumstances.
When I advocated for the self-directed home care I needed in the Canadian healthcare system, hospital staff members simply presented me with what amounted to two choices: accept an institutional or agency model that would expose me to further harm and readmission, or apply for an assisted death. Although I have made it clear that I want help to live rather than help to die, I have still been asked to consider this final option. Not one, but again and again. I want people in Britain to understand what that feels like: to feel as though you have become such an inconvenience to a strained universal healthcare system that my death is easier to accommodate than the care you need to live.