Quadriplegic man dies via euthanasia after developing bed sores waiting at Quebec hospital
'I don’t want to be a burden,' the 66-year-old man said prior to his death after he developed bed sores due to a lack of specialized care at a hospital in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec.
66-year-old Quebec man
Normand Meunier who died via euthanasia after a 4-day hospital stay left him
with severe bed soresCBC News / YouTube
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Mon Apr 15, 2024 - 1:19 pm EDT
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SAINT-JÉRÔME, Quebec (LifeSiteNews) — A quadriplegic man in Quebec was killed via euthanasia after he developed severe bed sores while waiting in a hospital for an extended period of time.
On March 29, Normand Meunier, a 66-year-old quadriplegic man in Quebec, was euthanized in his home after developing bed sores due to a lack of specialized care at the hospital in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec, according to a report by Radio-Canada.
“I don’t want to be a burden. At any rate, the medical opinions say I won’t be a burden for long; as the old folks say, it’s better to kick the can,” Meunier told Radio-Canada in an interview the day before he was killed.
Meunier, whose arms and legs have been paralyzed since 2022 due to a spinal cord injury, went to the hospital’s intensive care for a respiratory virus. According to his partner Sylvie Brosseau, the hospital placed Meunier on a stretcher for 95 hours.
Bosseau revealed that she asked medical staff to provide a specialized bed for Meunier but was told that the hospital would have to order one. According to the hospital, they are investigating the incident, adding that they do have beds available.
After spending four days on a hospital cot, Meunier developed bed sores and a major pressure ulcer on his buttocks, which were so severe that the muscle and bone were exposed and visible.
While Meunier had previously experienced bedsores, he determined to end his life via Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), the euphemistic name for Canada’s euthanasia regime, rather than continue to receive treatment.
Unfortunately, Meunier is not the first Canadians to choose MAiD after being given insufficient medical care.
As a result of a healthcare worker shortage, 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.
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This was the case of 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.
Throughout the agonizing wait, his family “prayed he would change his mind or get an 11th-hour call that chemo had been scheduled,” but were instead told consistently by the hospital that they were “backlogged.”
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.”
However, instead of supporting the healthcare system to prevent Canadians from taking their own lives, the Trudeau government is working to expand access to MAiD by loosening its requirements.
On March 9, 2024, MAiD was set to expand to include those suffering solely from mental illness. This is a result of the 2021 passage of Bill C-7, which also allowed the chronically ill – not just the terminally ill – to qualify for so-called doctor-assisted death.
After massive pushback from doctors, pro-life groups and politicians, the program’s expansion was temporarily paused until 2027.
According to Health Canada, in 2022, 13,241 Canadians died by MAiD lethal injection, which is 4.1 percent of all deaths in the country for that year, and a 31.2 percent increase from 2021.
The number of Canadians killed by lethal injection since 2016 now stands at 44,958.
Send an urgent message to Canadian legislators urging them to stop expanding assisted suicide
Topics
Tagged as
- Assisted Suicide
- Euthanasia
- Healthcare
- healthcare wait times
- Healthcare Worker Shortage
- lethal injection
- Maid
- Medical Assistance In Dying
- Saint-Jérôme
- Trudeau
