Has MAiD Short-Circuited End-of-Life Conversations about Existential Suffering in Canada?
Received Date: Apr 01, 2024 / Published Date: Jun 09, 2025
Abstract
Terminally ill Canadian patients are legally eligible to opt for an assisted death to alleviate intolerable Existential Suffering (ES). While the intent of the decriminalization of maid was partly to revitalize therapeutic relations between dying persons and clinicians around suffering at the End of Life (EOL), we contend that the recent changes in the Canadian EOL care landscape and legislation may have inadvertently created the conditions for terminally ill patients to request an assisted death in order to alleviate ES prior to having opportunities to optimize the remediation of their existential distress.
Keywords: Maid; Existential suffering; Palliative care
Citation: Risio MD, Thompson A (2025) Has MAiD Short-Circuited End-of-Life Conversations about Existential Suffering in Canada?. J Palliat Care Med 15: 766.
Copyright: © 2025 Risio MD, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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