PETITION REGARDING THE CANADIAN HEALTH CARE INSURANCE SYSTEM AND THE CANADIAN JUDICIAL SYSTEM AS APPLIED TO THE “END-OF-LIFE” DECISION MAKING

This petition is made to ask the Government of Canada and all Provincial Governments in Canada to respect the Candians’ Constitution, our Charter of Rights and Freedoms and more precisely, our rights to “life, freedom and security” as well as our right to be treated equally under the law. For this purpose, I ask the Government of Canada and all the provincial governments of Canada:

1.      That our Health Care System and our Judicial System be administered in such way as to disallow all age or handicap discrimination, as well as all bias based on remaining life expectancy, regardless of age, illness or handicap.

2.      That our Health Care System pay out all legitimate claims made, in a fair and equitable manner, to all those who make claims, regardless of age, illness or handicap.

3.      That our emergency rooms or the critical care units never turn away any patient who arrives requesting care and whose condition is of urgent or critical nature, not until there is medical certainty that upon dismissal or discharge from such a unit, the patient’s right to life, freedom and security was assured, that the patient is medically safe, regardless of age, illness or handicap.

4.      That our acute care or critical care units always accept all acutely or critically ill patients, regardless of age, illness or handicap such as to ensure that the patient’s right to life and security is being upheld; that critical care units never turn a patient away before medical proof is available to show the patient is no longer critically or acutely ill; that they never deliberately and unilaterally refuse admission to a critically or acutely ill patient, so as to “allow them to die”.

5.      That doctors not be entitled and be disallowed to unilaterally decide to withdraw treatment from patients, regardless of age, illness or invalidity.

6.      That neither the medical professionals, nor the judicial system, nor any appointed officials of the state, via any legal Courts or via any state created Boards, be authorized to make  judgements regarding quality of life of patients who are incapable of expressing themselves, that they not be permitted to decide upon important life or death matters on the patient’s behalf, such as end-of-life decisions, regardless of the situation,  and regardless of age, illness or invalidity such as to avoid discrimination and personal  bias. That these decisions be treated as strictly personal and be left to the patients and their family or to the patient’s appointed power of attorney.

7.      That doctors or Courts be disallowed to decide to unilaterally withhold or withdraw life support, regardless of the patient’s age, illness or invalidity.

8.      That a doctor’s responsibility be clearly specified and limited to providing medical treatment and medical care to all their patients equally; to preserving and prolonging life, but never deliberately ending it; to improving their patients’ medical condition to the best possible level (according to the knowledge and ability of the practitioner as well as to the best available medication and available technology), but to never deliberately and unilaterally deciding to worsen a patient’s condition by withdrawing treatment or by not providing the necessary testing and medication, regardless of the patient’s age, illness or invalidity.

9.      That end-of-life decisions specifically be made solely by the patients, their family members or their appointed Power of Attorneys and by nobody else.

10.   That Courts of law and state created Boards not be authorized to give doctors any approval to terminate their patients’ lives by “letting them die”.

11.    That the Criminal Code of Canada be upheld and applied to medical professionals and Hospitals equally, in the same manner that it is applied to any and all citizens or corporations of Canada.

12.   That all records, medical, administrative or other related to the patient or the patient’s substitute decision maker be by law regarded as the patient’s property and not the property of the institution who recorded them.

13.   That “access to information rights” incorporate all the information pertaining to the patient or the patient’s family available to the medical and administrative staff, anywhere in the Hospital or medical clinic, and that no information be kept secret from the patient or from the family member acting as the substitute decision maker on the patient’s behalf. That the patient’s medical and administrative information be made readily available to the patient or the patients’ family/power of attorney, upon demand and that if copies cannot be provided on a short notice, the documents should be provided upon request for consultation and reading.

The above petitioned points constitute present current practices and they are in direct violation of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, of our Canadian Criminal Code, of our Access to Information Acts, of the Canadian Medical Codes of Ethics as well as of the many Provincial Medical Codes of Ethics. I can no longer accept this. These practices are in violation of my human rights and freedoms. They must be eliminated as soon as possible. I do not want to live in a country or a province that authorizes medical professionals to add killing to their professional responsibilities. I do not want my doctors to have approval to “let” me or my loved ones “die”!

I hereby respectfully request of my federal and provincial governments to introduce legislation for the medical professionals and for the medical institutions such as Hospitals, Clinics, Asylums, etc., that will ensure they abide by our Constitution, by the Canadian Criminal law, by the Access to Information legislature as well as by their own Code of Ethics regulations which should become Medical Ethics Acts.

Since our country operates on jurisprudence and since our jurisprudence shows that our Courts have traditionally allowed the medical professionals and the medical institutions to make exception from the law, (see decisions that have allowed doctors to terminate their patients’ lives) I demand that new legislature be introduced that will rectify this problem.

I respectfully submit that according to our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, all Canadian citizens must be treated equally under the law, regardless of their occupation, and that all Canadian institutions must be treated equally under the law, regardless of their field of operation. They must all be held responsible and accountable to respect and ensure the safety and security of the individual and the public at large. In conclusion I hereby request that my federal and provincial governments introduce legislature such that medical professionals and medical institutions, be held equally accountable and liable, under the same laws and in the same manner as the rest of us.

My name and tel. number are…………………………………………………..…………...

My address is………………………………………………………………………………….

Signed on this day of……………………in this city of……………………………….………..

Signature……………………………………………………………………