{"id":16583,"date":"2024-10-26T16:22:01","date_gmt":"2024-10-26T20:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vivredignite.org\/?p=16583"},"modified":"2024-10-26T16:26:52","modified_gmt":"2024-10-26T20:26:52","slug":"com-october-26-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vivredignite.org\/en\/com-october-26-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Reaction to new 2023-2024 report from the Commission on End-of-Life Care"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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\nUrgent need for a better understanding of \"access to and quality of palliative care\" in Quebec \n<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\n<\/p>

The Commission on End-of-Life Care published Thursday a\nreport on its activities from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024. <\/span>The full<\/span><\/a> report (50 pages) and <\/span>highlights<\/span><\/a> (2 pages) are available in French. <\/span><\/p>\n\n

After a first reading of the report, that was diligently\nprepared by the Commission, the Living with Dignity citizen network offers the\nfollowing observations:<\/span><\/p>\n\n

– 5,717 people received medical aid in dying (MAiD)\nduring the period studied by the report (7.3% of deaths in Quebec). This\nrepresents an increase of 9% compared with the previous year, but much less\nthan last year\u2019s increase (42%). Although the rise is no longer staggering, the\nannual increase continues. Will it soon reach a plateau? The current context,\nin which medical aid in dying is rapidly being offered as ‘care’, sometimes\neven in the same breath as a diagnosis of a serious illness (we have received several\ntestimonials), makes us very doubtful.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

– In his message in last year’s annual report\n(2022-23, p. ii), the president of the Commission on End-of-Life Care, Dr\nMichel Bureau, made the following point:<\/span><\/p>\n\n

In the absence of sufficient information, the\nCommission has great difficulty in monitoring and analysing access to and\nquality of palliative care offered and administered to people who could benefit\nfrom it.<\/span><\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

 <\/span>Unfortunately,\nthere is no follow-up to this reference in the 2023-2024 report.  <\/span>Palliative care is once again only mentioned\nunder the umbrella term of SPFV (palliative and end-of-life care). There is\nonly one observation about  <\/span>SPFV (on page\n22): “This report shows an increase in the number of people receiving\npalliative and end-of-life care in most regions in 2023-2024 compared with the\nprevious year. However, the Commission cannot comment on whether the needs of\npeople eligible for end-of-life care are being met.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n

We have high expectations for the five-year report on\nthe state of end-of-life care in Quebec (April 1, 2018 to March 31, 2023),\nwhich is due to be made public this fall. There is a crying need for data and a\nportrait of access to and quality of palliative care in Quebec. We are\nconfident that the Commission on End-of-Life Care will find ways to contribute\nto this.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

– Almost all MAiD was administered in accordance with\nthe Act respecting End-of-Life Care (LCSFV): 99.7%”.  <\/span>As we said earlier (<\/span>see point 3 of our\npress release on the 10th anniversary of the LCSFV<\/span><\/a>), we still wonder whether\ninformation obtained solely through self-declarations by MAiD providers\nprovides an adequate picture of the situation. The 16 cases of non-compliance\nwith the Act (13 of which did not involve a\nserious\/incurable illness) are too many. As has always been the case since\n2015, these cases do not appear to have led to sanctions by the Coll\u00e8ge des\nm\u00e9decins du Qu\u00e9bec or the Ordre des infirmi\u00e8res et infirmiers du Qu\u00e9bec. Why\nnot?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n

– Each year, the table showing\nthe suffering of people who have received MAiD is a sobering reminder (on page\n30):<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\n<\/p>

Are we really comfortable with the idea that loss of autonomy,\ninadequate pain control (or concerns about it), feelings of being a burden, and\nloneliness (to name but a few) contribute in such high proportions to the\nchoice of people who have received medical aid in dying?<\/span><\/p>\n\n

This reflection is urgently needed in a year in which\naccess to MAiD has been extended in Quebec (to include severe physical\nimpairment since March 7, and advance requests from October 30).<\/span><\/p>\n\n

– 30 –<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Media:

Jasmin\nLemieux-Lefebvre
\nCoordinator
\nLiving with Dignity citizen network
\n<\/span>directionVDD@gmail.com<\/span><\/a>
\n <\/span>+1 438 931-1233<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\nUrgent need for a better understanding of “access to and quality of palliative care” in Quebec<\/p>\n

The Commission on End-of-Life Care published Thursday a
\nreport on …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[290],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vivredignite.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vivredignite.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vivredignite.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vivredignite.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vivredignite.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16583"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vivredignite.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16587,"href":"https:\/\/vivredignite.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16583\/revisions\/16587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vivredignite.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vivredignite.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vivredignite.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}