{"id":28821,"date":"2025-06-01T09:00:38","date_gmt":"2025-06-01T09:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=28821"},"modified":"2025-06-01T09:26:12","modified_gmt":"2025-06-01T09:26:12","slug":"do-patients-without-a-terminal-illness-have-the-right-to-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=28821","title":{"rendered":"Do Patients Without a Terminal Illness Have the Right to Die?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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One of the doctors<\/strong> wanted to know why, despite everything, Paula Ritchie was still alive. \u201cI\u2019m just curious,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat has kept you from attempting suicide since August of 2023?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not very good at it,\u201d Paula said. \u201cObviously.\u201d Then she started to cry. She said that everything was getting worse. She said she didn\u2019t want to suffer anymore. \u201cThis is a more dignified way to go than suicide.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Listen to this article, read by Gabra Zackman<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption>
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Paula was lying in the big bed that she had pulled into the center of the living room, facing an old TV and a window that looked out on a row of garbage bins. The room\u2019s brown linoleum floors were stained, and its walls were mostly unadorned. On a bookshelf, there was a small figurine of an angel, her arm raised in offering. At 52, Paula had a pale, unblemished face and a tangle of dark hair that fell around her waist. The day before the appointment, in January this year, she washed her hair for the first time in weeks, but then she was not able to lift herself out of the bathtub. When, after hours, she managed to get out, her pain and dizziness was so bad that she had to crawl across the floor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Dr. Matt Wonnacott sat in a folding chair at the foot of the bed. He was there as Paula\u2019s \u201cprimary assessor\u201d: one of two independent physicians, along with Dr. Elspeth MacEwan, a psychiatrist, who drove through the snow to Smiths Falls, Ontario, to evaluate Paula\u2019s eligibility for Canada\u2019s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program \u2014 what critics call physician-assisted suicide.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re a difficult case,\u201d Wonnacott admitted. Another clinician had already assessed Paula and determined that she was ineligible \u2014 but there was no limit to how many assessments a patient could undergo, and Paula had called the region\u2019s MAID coordination service every day, sometimes every hour, demanding to be assessed again, until the nurse on the other line had practically begged Wonnacott and his colleagues to take Paula off her roster.<\/p>\n

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One of the doctors wanted to know why, despite everything, Paula Ritchie was still alive. \u201cI\u2019m just curious,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat has kept you from attempting suicide since August of 2023?\u201d\u201cI\u2019m not very good at it,\u201d Paula said. \u201cObviously.\u201d Then she started to cry. She said that everything was getting worse. She said she didn\u2019t want to suffer anymore. \u201cThis is a more dignified way to go than suicide.\u201dListen to this article, read by Gabra ZackmanPaula was lying in the big bed that she had pulled into the center of the living room, facing an old TV and a window that looked out on a row of garbage bins. The room\u2019s brown linoleum floors were stained, and its walls were mostly unadorned. On a bookshelf, there was a small figurine of an angel, her arm raised in offering. At 52, Paula had a pale, unblemished face and a tangle of dark hair that fell around her waist. The day before the appointment, in January this year, she washed her hair for the first time in weeks, but then she was not able to lift herself out of the bathtub. When, after hours, she managed to get out, her pain and dizziness was so bad that she had to crawl across the floor.Dr. Matt Wonnacott sat in a folding chair at the foot of the bed. He was there as Paula\u2019s \u201cprimary assessor\u201d: one of two independent physicians, along with Dr. Elspeth MacEwan, a psychiatrist, who drove through the snow to Smiths Falls, Ontario, to evaluate Paula\u2019s eligibility for Canada\u2019s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program \u2014 what critics call physician-assisted suicide.\u201cYou\u2019re a difficult case,\u201d Wonnacott admitted. Another clinician had already assessed Paula and determined that she was ineligible \u2014 but there was no limit to how many assessments a patient could undergo, and Paula had called the region\u2019s MAID coordination service every day, sometimes every hour, demanding to be assessed again, until the nurse on the other line had practically begged Wonnacott and his colleagues to take Paula off her roster.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28823,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28821"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28824,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28821\/revisions\/28824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}