Canadian Doctors Grapple With 2023 Plan to Let Mentally Ill Patients End Their Lives

This story contains discussion of suicide and eating disorders.

Canada will join a few other countries in allowing people with unbearable mental illness to access medical assistance in dying.

The Canadian Medical Association Journal published a study yesterday by Dutch psychiatrists that looked at the new law. The group surveyed 11 other psychiatrists who had worked with patients who expressedirremediable psychiatric suffering, and researched what sorts of questions and diagnostics can safely be used to determine if a patient is suffering enough to consider assisted suicide.

Mental illness is invisible and one of the problems with it. In an interview with the National Post, van Veen said it was hard to know what counts as incurable.

The only things you have in psychiatry are the patient's story, what you hear, and what the family tells you.

One Canadian expert is concerned about the use case for MAID and hopes it won't be used irresponsibly.

There is going to be a lot of uncertainty about how to apply this in March, according to Dr. Grainne Neilson, the past president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association.

Some people find mental illness to be so intolerable that it makes life difficult to live. Mental illness can also affect physical wellbeing.

The NaPo said that doctors must ask themselves if the person seeking the death of their loved one has exhausted all other treatments, or just some of them, and if so what the number of treatments must be. They will have to decide if MAID should require approval for an oversight committee in the way abortions used to be.

It is difficult to tackle assisted suicide before applying it to mental illness. Doctors are moving slowly and with great care, regardless of what they decide.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a United States-based network of crisis centers that provide a toll-free hotline for help.

There are new mental health treatments. Government moves to decriminalize marijuana.

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