https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/17/canada-nonter…

An expert committee reviewing euthanasia deaths in Canada’s most populous province has identified several cases in which patients asked to be killed in part for social reasons such as isolation and fears of homelessness, raising concerns over approvals for vulnerable people in the country’s assisted dying system.
Ontario’s chief coroner issued several reports on Wednesday – after an Associated Press investigation based in part on data provided in one of the documents – reviewing the euthanasia deaths of people who were not terminally ill. The expert committee’s reports are based on an analysis of anonymized cases, chosen for their implications for future euthanasia requests.
Canada’s legal criteria require a medical reason for euthanasia – a fatal diagnosis or unmanageable pain – but the committee’s reports show cases in which people were euthanized based on other factors including an “unmet social need”.
AP’s investigation found doctors and nurses privately struggling with euthanasia requests from vulnerable people whose suffering might be addressed by money, social connections or adequate housing. Providers expressed deep discomfort with ending the lives of vulnerable people whose deaths were avoidable, even if they met the criteria in Canada’s euthanasia system, known nationally as Maid, for medical assistance in dying.
“To finally have a government report that recognizes these cases of concern is extremely important,” said Ramona Coelho, a doctor on the expert committee. “We’ve been gaslit for so many years when we raised fears about people getting Maid because they were poor, disabled or socially isolated.”
In the case of a man identified as Mr A, Ontario’s expert committee questioned whether authorities tried hard enough to relieve his pain before he was euthanized. Mr A was an unemployed man in his 40s with bowel disease and a history of substance abuse and mental illness. He was described as “socially vulnerable and isolated”. Some committee members were al…