'I could have had more time if I had more help': Winnipeg woman chooses MAiD after insufficient home-care supports

Sathya Dhara Kovac, a Winnipeg woman who chose a medically assisted death, has said that she wouldn’t have made that choice if she'd had home care supports available. “It was not a genetic disease that took me out, it was a system,” she wrote before her death in a letter to her loved ones, according to CBC News. “There is desperate need for change. That is the sickness that causes so much suffering. Vulnerable people need help to survive. I could have had more time if I had more help.” Her case has been raised by those concerned that some people are choosing MAiD because of lack of access to supports, especially after the restrictions around MAiD have also been loosened so that death no longer needs to be foreseeable, but people must have an “intolerable” and “irreversible” illness, disease or disability. Read: Medically assisted death 'needs to be a good choice, not a choice of last resort' Kovac, who was 44, had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Friends told CBC News she didn’t have enough basic support at home with things like feeding herself or using the bathroom. She received about 55 hours of care a week, but needed more, and couldn’t afford to pay privately to supplement it. She didn’t want to move into an assisted-living facility. She did not tell the professionals who assessed her for MAiD that home care support needs was driving her decision, fearing she would be denied. Many stories of people seeking MAiD due to lack of social supports have also been reported in the media. Another is Toronto resident Tracey Thompson, who told CTV News that she was applying for MAiD due to having long-COVID, and losing the ability to work. Previously working as a chef, she expected to run through her savings in five months, and said it could take years to qualify for ODSP, which wouldn’t even be enough to cover her living expenses when she did qualify. Read: Toronto woman unable to work due to long-COVID has started the process for MAiD Just this past week, across the country, Jacques Comeau in Montreal spoke to CTV News about wanting assisted death due to insufficient home care support. The 66-year-old spoke to a doctor recently to be assessed for MAiD. Comeau, who is quadriplegic, has been disabled since he was young, and has had a happy life through home care. He got a degree, worked as an art therapist and travelled. But since his local health service centre changed his care routine and staffers, his quality of life has suffered. "I'm stressed beyond belief, I'm not sleeping well, I'm not eating regularly," he told CTV News. "The amount of pain I'm dealing with, psychologically, is the kind I've never dealt with. I became disabled as a young person and got through that. And this is 10 times worse." Read: It will soon be easier – and faster – to get a medically assisted death than many disability supports in Canada

'I could have had more time if I had more help': Winnipeg woman chooses MAiD after insufficient home-care supports

Register for free access or login.

Related Topics