CBC News: Opposition parties call for indefinite pause to MAID expansion for mental illness
Only a small number of people whose sole medical condition is a mental illness would be eligible for MAID, said Long. She said they’re individuals who have endured many years of suffering and have tried multiple treatments.
Dr. Jitender Sareen is part of a group of eight university psychiatry chairs who wrote to federal ministers and urged the committee not to expand MAID to include mental illness.
Sareen said practice standards to guide psychiatrists and clinicians are inadequate, and Canada is lagging behind other countries in mental health and addictions funding.
“Offering death when the person has not had the opportunity to get better, with or without treatment, is, in our opinion, not acceptable,” said Sareen, a professor and head of the department of psychiatry at the University of Manitoba.