This page is devoted to a reality that will soon be in force in the province of Quebec.
In order to fully understand what medical aid in dying is, here is the definition that the Government of Quebec makes of it on its website, www.thesaurus.gouv.qc.ca.
” Made for a health professional to provide a medical service, whether care or any other intervention, for the purpose of helping his patient die under strict conditions, at the request of the latter, that either by providing him with the means to die, or by directly helping him to die. This aid is limited to persons of full age, able to consent to care, suffering from a serious and incurable disease which causes constant and unbearable suffering at a stage where the decline is advanced and irreversible.”
Stemming from the DYING IN THE DIGNITY project of the deputies of the National Assembly of Quebec, this reality will allow people at the end of their life whose quality of the rest of their lives is annihilated by the incredible suffering that their illnesses cause.
Strictly at the patient’s request, he must, according to clear parameters, be determined by a doctor, that his patient can be the subject of this service. Evidently, the process is more of a medically assisted suicide than a euthanasia.
For all sick or caregivers, it is always important, but even more so in this specific case, to plan for wills and funeral pre-arrangements. Thus, the members of a family of a person in this situation will be able to continue their life and to mourn without having to worry about the funeral details or the organization of the patient’s property after his death.
If medical assistance in dying is a process of human dignity, making a will and making funeral arrangements are gestures of love for those close to the patient in advanced and irreversible decline.