The Saskatchewan government introduced new legislation Monday to enshrine regulations related to medical assistance in dying (MAID), defining eligibility requirements for ending a life through medical intervention.
The Medical Assistance in Dying Additional Safeguards Act was introduced by the governing Saskatchewan Party. It acts on Ottawa’s call for provinces to manage the delivery of medically assisted dying, the province said in a news release. The provincial act reinforces the current federal regulations on who is, and who is not, eligible for MAID.
“This legislation establishes additional safeguards, particularly around young people, mental illness, and capacity, and strengthens protections for health care professionals who choose not to participate in MAID,” provincial Health Minister Jeremy Cockrill said in the release.
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It dictates that people who are under 18, do not have the capacity to make their own health care choices and who only suffer from mental illness as their medical condition cannot receive MAID. Those guidelines align with current federal regulations, which also prohibit non-Canadians and people whose conditions are deemed not “grievous and irremediable” enough.
For an illness to meet those “grievous and irremediable” credentials, a person must be suffering from a serious illness, disease, or disability that is in an advanced state of decline. They must also be feeling untreatable, unbearable pain or mental suffering that cannot be relieved because of their ailment.
The act must pass in the legislative assembly before officially going into effect provincewide.
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