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A member of Ontario’s medical assistance in dying (MAID) review panel is raising concerns that some doctors’ “flexible” interpretation of MAID eligibility has enabled patients with mild dementia to qualify.
Trudo Lemmens, a member of Ontario’s Chief Coroner’s MAID Death Review Committee, recently authored a paper analyzing MAID cases involving patients with dementia. In some cases, documented in the committee’s reports, patients in earlier stages of the disease were found to meet legal criteria for intolerable suffering and an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability, even though they had not yet experienced severe cognitive decline and their eligibility was based on the anticipated loss of capacity from dementia.
