Canadian doctors have been accused of trying to railroad patients into killing themselves after a woman revealed that she was pressured into euthanasia when she sought help for depression.
37-year-old Kathrin Mentler says she went to the Vancouver General Hospital to ask for help managing her suicidal thoughts while suffering from chronic depression.
However, Mentler was stunned when the doctors tried to pressure her into applying for Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program.
She said she asked the doctors for psychiatric help but the hospital wasn’t interested in treating her.
The doctors told her that she would have to wait to see a psychiatrist and they didn’t have any spare beds.
They then insisted that it would be better if she applied for “assisted suicide” instead.
The Globe and Mail reports, “Ms. Mentler says a clinician told her there would be long waits to see a psychiatrist and that the health care system is ‘broken.’
“That was followed by a jarring question: ‘Have you considered MAID?’”
“She was like, ‘I can call the on-call psychiatrist, but there are no beds; there’s no availability,’” Mentler explained.
“She said to me: ‘The system is broken.’”
Mentler said that she had not