N.S. woman says MAiD expansion delays can’t wait: ‘Everybody should have the same right’

A Halifax woman who was recently approved for medical assistance in dying (MAiD) believes all Canadians should have the right to choose.

April Hubbard is speaking out after the federal government delayed the expansion of medical assistance in dying for people solely suffering from a mental illness until 2027.

“Everybody should have the same right to die,” Hubbard said.

Hubbard, 38, has a degenerative condition and lives with chronic pain due to spinal cord tumours. She shares that she’s always known she would seek medically-assisted death.

“I went from in October of 2020… travelling the world with a circus troupe … I was in Korea … to November of 2022 not being able to get off the couch at all,” said the disability advocate.

Late last year, her application for MAiD was approved. She hopes to see her 39th birthday in April, but admits she likely won’t make it to 40.

“I’ve given everything I can and I’m at the point that I don’t want to give anymore,” she said.

“I want to be able to enjoy the time that I have left with my family and friends, and just die peacefully surrounded by the people I love.”

The federal government’s decision to delay expanding eligibility for MAiD is indicative of the ongoing stigma surrounding mental health, according to psychiatrist Derryck Smith.

“Why is it that people with mental illness need protection on all of these issues? Why can’t they, like every other Canadian, make up their minds on this?” Smith said from Vancouver.

“Why do we still have a separate category for mental illness when it comes to assisted dying?”

The delay also doesn’t sit well with social work professor Jessica Shaw from the University of Calgary.

“I think it’s an abdication of our responsibility to say because we don’t understand the subjective experience of suffering that we aren’t going to support it at all as an eligibility criteria when it comes to MAiD,” she said.

Over the last two years, there have been nearly 1,500 referrals and more than 600 deaths in Nova Scotia, according to the Department of Health.

The data also shows a steady increase in MAiD applications since it was introduced in 2016.

For Hubbard, she hopes that her efforts in advocacy will one day help someone else in her situation.

“I hope by me speaking out, the next person won’t have to have that fight,” she said.

“And that one day we’ll all get to choose when our own death comes, and when we say that we’ve had enough.”

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