(LifeSiteNews) — Research has found that Canadians diagnosed with cancer in the emergency room are often sent home without treatment; however, euthanasia remains readily available.
According to a study published September 8 by the National Library of Medicine, Ontario emergency room doctors are struggling to serve patients diagnosed with cancer while Liberals continue to push Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD).
“It’s kind of a little bit shocking to me that given how many people cancer affects and how devastating a diagnosis it can be to receive, that we haven’t figured this out better,” one doctor told researchers.
The study found that limited primary care access, specialist shortages, and long wait times have pushed patients to seek care from the emergency room. As a result, emergency doctors are giving out cancer diagnoses but are unable to provide sufficient follow up care. “We don’t often have enough information to know further what that means, in terms of prognosis, in terms of the type of treatments that they’re going to get,” another doctor revealed. “Then, to also add on the burden and say, ‘I also don’t know when you’re going to be seen’ is just a gut punch for them.”
According to the study, poor communication between EDs, primary care, and specialists often results in “lost” patients who are either delayed or prevented from receiving the proper care. Doctors called for standardized referral pathways, patient navigators, and better support to ensure timely follow-up.
The study discovered that the lack of timely care has resulted in “higher stages of diagnosis and increased mortality.”
At the same time, Liberals are focusing on expanding MAiD rather than addressing the medical staff shortage crises. In February 2024 after pushback from pro-life, medical, and mental health groups as well as most of Canada’s provinces, the federal government delayed the mental illness expansion until 2027. Liberals are also working to expand MAiD to children.
The most recent reports show that MAiD is the sixth highest cause of death in Canada. However, it was not listed as such in Statistics Canada’s top 10 leading causes of death from 2019 to 2022.
Asked why MAiD was left off the list, the agency said that it records the illnesses that led Canadians to choose to end their lives via euthanasia, not the actual cause of death, as the primary cause of death.
According to Health Canada, in 2022, 13,241 Canadians died by MAiD lethal injections. This accounts for 4.1 percent of all deaths in the country for that year, a 31.2 percent increase from 2021.
At the same time, wait times to receive care in Canada have increased to an average of 27.7 weeks, leading some Canadians to despair and opt for euthanasia instead of waiting for assistance.
This was the case with 52-year-old Dan Quayle, a grandfather from British Columbia. On November 24, he chose to be killed via lethal injection after being unable to receive cancer treatment due to the increased wait times.
Similarly, in 2022, a Winnipeg woman wrote in her posthumously published obituary that she chose to die by assisted suicide after being refused the treatments she needed: “I could have had more time if I had more help.”
Indeed, the sick and elderly who refuse to end their lives with MAiD are often condemned as “selfish.”
As LifeSiteNews previously reported, in 2019, an Alberta nurse reportedly told Christian author Heather Hancock that she was “selfish” for not ending her life through MAiD.
In May 2024, LifeSiteNews reported on a Canadian man who felt “completely traumatized” and violated that he was offered MAiD “multiple times” instead of getting the proper care he needed while in the hospital.
