TORONTO, June 12, 2002 (LSN.ca) – Wayne Deakin, a 46-year-old tuberculosis patient in Toronto’s West Park Healthcare Centre, told a hearing that he would rather die than be quarantined for public safety while receiving treatment at public expense that would save his life. The panel is reviewing a court order that has kept him detained and watched by hospital guards while he receives treatment, according to a Canadian Press/Toronto Sun report. “I don’t want to be here,” Deakin told the panel by speaker-phone. “I have no family left.” Deakin’s lawyer, Barry Swadron, compared him to “a caged animal” and told Justice Bruno Cavion that his client is willing to be quarantined for the rest of his life while refusing treatment, but not to be restrained. “He hasn’t received his human rights and he hasn’t been treated with dignity,” the lawyer claimed. Deakin said he has been shackled to his bed for up to 23 hours, had both hands and one foot cuffed in a three-point restraint, and has been forced to take showers in leg irons. It is not clear from reports if Deakin suffers from depression, severe loneliness or mental illness. In principle, says Alex Shadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, “mentally competent people should not be treated this way”—that is, forcibly restrained.
To read the Toronto Sun/Canadian Press story (usually available only today) see: https://www.canoe.ca/CNEWS/tb_jun12-sun.html or https://www.canoe.ca/TorontoNews/ts.ts-06-12-0017.html