CALGARY – The University of Calgary, together with Alberta Health Services and Calgary Public Library came together Saturday to host a “Living Library.”
Volunteers, including doctors, survivors and caregivers, acted as “living books,” sharing information about cancer.
Calgarian and widow Gerry Burger-Martindale was among them. Her husband died from cancer three and a half years ago. He had been diagnosed with cancer six months earlier.
She says he suffered in agonizing pain and that painkillers did not help.
“The image of coming home and seeing your 20-year-old daughter trying to console her shrieking father because he’s in that much pain is something that unfortunately is not going to go quickly,” says Burger-Martindale.
She has since become an advocate for physician assisted death.
“He asked me to help him die. I failed him because I couldn’t do that.”
Calgary palliative care consultant Dr. Martin LaBrie says AHS has made great strides when it comes to helping dying patients live better lives.
“We can’t take away all the bumps in the road and we never will be able to,” says Labrie. “Usually it’s possible to be able to address the suffering and help people restore dignity in their lives. So if we work towards that and people realize they matter, they stop asking to be dead.”
Earlier this year the Supreme Court of Canada overturned a ban on physician assisted dying. The court ordered the federal government to re-write the law before February of 2016.
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