Let's Talk about Hospice Palliative Care Instead Campaign
Whether you agree with euthanasia and assisted suicide or are entirely against it, there are some
key messages and things that we know regardless of opinion.
Key Messages:
- The recent preoccupation with euthanasia and assisted suicide is taking time away from the issue of access to hospice palliative and end-of-life care for all Canadians.
- That euthanasia and assisted suicide is not and never will be a part of hospice palliative care.
- The Norms of Practice (2002) define hospice palliative care as care that aims to relieve suffering and improve the quality of living and dying.1
- Hospice palliative care providers have observed – and these observations are confirmed by research evidence2,3 – that the desire for euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide usually stems from one or more of the following factors:
- a desire not to be a burden on others;
- the individual’s need for control over the illness and his or her body/life;
- depression and psychological distress often associated with illness;
- the pain and suffering caused by all terminal illnesses.
- Comprehensive hospice palliative care can help alleviate many of the factors that may cause people to consider physician-assisted suicide, particularly the burden on loved ones, depression and pain and symptom management.
- Canadians are confused between euthanasia; assisted suicide; do not resuscitate; sedation; the right to refuse treatment; the right to refuse hydration; the right to refuse nutrition and many other terms and instead appear to lump them all together.
Why Now?
The federal government has a bill before Parliament (Bill C384) that would amend the Criminal Code of Canada to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide and it is scheduled to go to reading and a possible vote on November 16, 2009. This poorly worded bill is diverting attention away from hospice palliative care.
So what should our role be as a hospice palliative care community?
In the hospice palliative care experience, the process of dying has meaning and purport for the person as well as his or her loved ones. As a field of practice, we have the responsibility to ensure that all those involved in providing hospices palliative care have the knowledge (including an understanding of the alternatives to physician-assisted suicide), attitude and skills to help people at end-of-life manage both physical and emotional suffering, and to support family members. We also have a responsibility to ensure that patients seeking physician-assisted suicide are aware of other options.
We encourage you to avoid discussing euthanasia and assisted suicide at the same time as
discussing hospices palliative care as these differing issues are being confused. If you do not
want to participate in the discussion of euthanasia and assisted suicide, we encourage you to
instead speak out clearly about what hospice palliative care means and the form of care that is
provided at the end-of-life. While doing so, encourage others to become a part of the “Let’s talk
about hospice palliative care instead!” campaign also!
What is included in this release:
- Ferris FD, Balfour HM, Bowen K, Farley J, Hardwick M, Lamontagne C, Lundy M, Syme A, West P. A Model to Guide Hospice Palliative Care. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association, 2002.
- Van der Maas PJ, van Delden JJ, Pijnenborg L, Looman CW. Euthanasia and other medical decisions concerning the end of life. Lancet 1991; 338:669-674.
- Chochinov HM, Wilson KG, Enns M et al. Desire for death in the terminally ill. American Journal of Psychiatry 1995; 152:1185-1191.
