Editor:
Re: Palliative care not compatible with MAiD, letter to the editor, Jan. 16
I find Patricia Stanyer’s letter confusing. No one who is receiving palliative care in a hospice is going to be “shunted aside when they are at the most vulnerable stage of life.” They are permitted to stay until their choice to die without assistance is complete.
It is the person who has also paid taxes all of their life but chooses MAiD that is being shunted aside by Delta Hospice with the refusal to allow someone to exercise their legal right in a tax-funded facility.
It doesn’t sound like a very civilized community that forces someone who is dying to pack up and leave when they are at their most vulnerable stage of life just because they have come to a decision that none of us are in a place to judge.
All physicians, organizations and associations are entitled to have their own mandates and philosophies but personal beliefs need to be separate from legal rights and if Delta Hospice wants to discriminate against a person’s choice on how to leave this life, it should not receive my tax dollars when it does not allow access to the services entitled to all Canadians.
Kristin Roberts
