Canadian medically assisted deaths increased nearly tenfold in five years

In a grim report, Health Canada has revealed that the number of medically assisted deaths has gone up tremendously in five years.

The third annual report (2021) on medically assisted deaths was published last month. It shows that since 2016 — the year Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) was legalized — more and more people are opting to end their lives of their own volition. Individuals have to meet certain criteria to be eligible for MAID.

Health Canada describes MAID as “the administering by a medical practitioner or nurse practitioner of a substance to a person, at their request, that causes their death; or the prescribing or providing by a medical practitioner or nurse practitioner of a substance to a person, at their request, so that they may self-administer the substance and in doing so cause their own death.”

In 2021, 10,064 Canadians died under MAID. This was a striking increase from 1,018 deaths in 2016.

Health Canada

Provincially, the highest number of MAID deaths ever was in Ontario (9,798) followed by Quebec (9,741) and BC (6,704).

In 2016, these numbers stood at 191 for Ontario, 494 for Quebec, and 194 for BC.

In 2020, MAID deaths jumped massively, going from 2019’s 5,661 to 7,630. For reference, the COVID-19 pandemic officially began in Canada on January 25, 2020, when infection was detected in the first person in the country.

It is unclear if the spike in MAID deaths is tied to the pandemic. However, the timeline is hard to ignore. It could be argued that Canadians became more accepting of the MAID law over the years, as even prior to the pandemic, MAID figures seemed to double each year.

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On March 17 last year, new changes for the MAID eligibility criteria kicked in. Under these, a person requesting MAID should:

be 18 years of age or older and have decision-making capacity
be eligible for publicly funded health care services
make a voluntary request that is not the result of external pressure
give informed consent to receive MAID, meaning that the person has consented to receiving MAID, after they have received all information needed to make this decision
have a serious and incurable illness, disease or disability (excluding a mental illness until March 17, 2023)
be in an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability
have enduring and intolerable physical or psychological suffering that cannot be alleviated under conditions the person considers acceptable

Further legislation is underway, and it’ll loosen these prerequisites even more.

Health Canada says that starting March 17 next year, “people with a mental illness as their sole underlying medical condition will have access to MAID if they meet all of the eligibility requirements and the practitioners fulfill the safeguards that are put in place for this group of people.”

Those with mental illness combined with other medical conditions will be able to seek MAID. This means people with conditions such as depression and anxiety will be able to qualify as well.

Though the federal health agency says that eligibility is “always assessed on an individual basis, taking into account all of the relevant circumstances,” it must be noted that 81% of applicant requests were approved for MAID administration in 2021.

Health Canada also reported that in 2021, there was a 27.7% increase in MAID requests compared to 2020.

What 2022 will look like remains to be seen.