Alberta nurse told author Heather Hancock she was ‘selfish’ for not getting MAiD

She has battled cerebral palsy since she was a young child and it was that condition that prompted a nurse in a Medicine Hat, Alberta hospital to tell her that Hancock should stop being "selfish" and think about accessing Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), the euthanasia program that has made Canada the suicide capital of the world.

The nurse was helping Hancock access the bathroom while receiving treatment for muscle spams at the Medicine Hat Regional Hospital.

"You should do the right thing and consider MAiD," said the nurse, according to a report in the Daily Mail. "You're being selfish. You're not living, you're merely existing," the nurse continued.

Hancock, 56, told the Mail that those words left her "gobsmacked" but that she didn't flinch from telling the nurse that no, she wasn't merely existing and her life was worth living.

She responded to the nurse by saying, "You have no right to push me to accept MAiD," Hancock told the Mail. Hancock did register an official complaint about the treatment she received at the hospital even though she has been told to consider MAiD on three separate occasions while under the supervision and "care" of Canadian healthcare staff.

"They just view me as a drain on the medical system and that my healthcare dollars could be spent on an able-bodied person," Hancock told the Daily Mail.

She lives in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan today in an assisted-living center but is very active as a writer and activist against Canada's growing euthanasia program.

In March, Canada decided not to extend the "eligibility" of its euthanasia program to the mentally ill, a category that could also include drug addicts and alcoholics. Critics say that is not just euthanasia but eugenics. But Health Minister Mark Holland announced that the proposed program expansion will proceed in 2027.

The federal government first postponed the expansion in 2023, after receiving considerable push-back from some prominent psychiatrists who questioned the prudence of the change in an open letter.

Dying with Dignity Canada (DWDC) would like to see MAiD available to minors – children aged 12 years and up. Statistics Canada has been disguising the number of deaths attributable to MAiD since the program began in 2016.

Information about MAiD deaths can still be found on the Health Canada website, which reports that in 2022 "there were 13,241 MAID provisions reported in Canada, accounting for 4.1% of all deaths in Canada."

Health Canada even provides the total figure of MAiD fatalities: "When all data sources are considered, the total number of medically assisted deaths reported in Canada since the introduction of federal MAID legislation in 2016 is 44,958."

Given the annual increase in the use of the MAiD program, when the numbers for 2023 are considered, the total number of deaths could now total 60,000 and and it accounts for 4.6 percent of all fatalities.