By Thaddeus M. Baklinski
OTTAWA, November 8, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Robert Cushman, CEO of the Champlain Local Health Integration Network in eastern Ontario is mystified by reaction to an interview he gave to the Ottawa Citizen. While saying there needs to be open public discussion about how best to serve the needs of the aging baby boom generation, he said the debate should take place in the context of rising health care costs.
This has led to accusations that he is actually calling for a debate on euthanasia and the right to “die with dignity” as a matter of public policy.
Dr. Will Johnston, president of Physicians for Life, said in an interview in the Vancouver Sun, “Dr. Cushman seems to be hinting at a personal bias towards legalized suicide and he is trying to open the debate. He is softening public opinion by raising a false issue of costs. Our health care costs are not high because of a lack of assisted suicide.”
Dr. Johnston continued that “Dr. Cushman is playing into the hands of right-to-die advocates who want to legalize euthanasia, which Canadians have already rejected. And tying the issue to the rising cost of health care is a rather ingenious way of broadening its appeal.”
Though Dr. Cushman emphasized respect for seniors’ independence and their dignity, and that bottom lines aren’t his only motivation for seeking public dialogue, his descriptions of “80- or 90-year-olds on ventilators being sent to intensive care units, some of whom have Do Not Resuscitate orders lost in the system,” sent an ambiguous message.
In an interview with LifeSiteNews, Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition said Dr. Cushman had backed off from his earlier statements because “the media seem to have derived different inferences from his comments.”
Opponents of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are also concerned that elderly patients might be coerced into wanting to kill themselves out of guilt for their financial burden on families or the health care system.
Schadenberg explained that influencing an aging population to refuse medical treatment when it might be necessary and helpful is part of the concept of the “duty to die” which right-to-die advocates encourage.
“So even if Cushman is not saying explicitly that suicide and euthanasia would be an answer to this problem of an aging population and mounting pressure on health services, implicitly the result is “dying with dignity,” that is, assisted suicide and euthanasia,” Schadenberg concluded.