The latest twist in the saga of assisted suicide in Canada – or Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID), as the Canadians prefer to call it – involves an Ontario man in his late 40s who the government killed for “post Covid-19 vaccination syndrome.”

The National Post pointed out on Thursday that “post-vaccination syndrome” is every bit as controversial as medically assisted suicide in Canada. The medical system does not regard it as an official diagnosis. 

The Ontario man, referred to as “Mr. A,” had a history of mental illness, including “thoughts of suicide,” plus physical symptoms of decline his doctors could not explain. Doctors could not reach a consensus on whether his decline was irreversible or not – but they euthanized him anyway.

According to a report issued by Ontario’s “MAID death review committee,” the patient suffered “functional decline” after receiving three vaccination product doses to prevent coronavirus infection. He was also suffering from “depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and personality disorders.”

An autopsy performed after the patient was put to death could find no physiological explanation for his symptoms.

MAID has grown more controversial in Canada, and around the world, as restrictions on the practice have loosened. The Wall Street Journal editorialized in September that the system has become “monstrous,” with only 3.5 percent of requests for assisted suicide being denied, even when the patients had decidedly non-terminal conditions such as vision loss or diabetes.

As critics predicted, assisted suicide has exploded in Canada. MAID is now the fifth leading cause of death for Canadians, with the annual figures increasing more than tenfold since 2016. Patients have reported doctors actively pushing suicide as a treatment option.

Medical ethicists question if people with mental illness should be expected to make decisions about ending their own lives. Some critics speculate that the Canadian medical system is abusing MAID to resolve treatment backlogs and drug shortages.

The case of Mr. A. hits a few hot buttons in the MAID controversy, such as the patient being given a vaccination syndrome diagnosis that is “previously unrecognized in medicine,” the absence of any indication he was terminally ill, and the question of whether he was mentally competent or not to make a life-ending decision.

The MAID death review committee was uncomfortable with some other recent cases, including a man with bowel disease and substance abuse problems who was apparently never offered treatment for his addiction before he was offered suicide as a treatment option. His executioner actually picked him up and drove him to the euthanasia site, which some committee members thought was a “helpful and compassionate” gesture, while others found it unsettling.

Although most of the committee members seemed content with the overall MAID situation in Ontario, University of Toronto psychiatrist Dr. Sonu Gaind told the National Post that Canadian doctors have become much too willing to recommend euthanasia in borderline “Track 2” cases.

“I think we have gone so far over the line with Track 2 that people cannot even see the line that we’ve crossed. It’s pretty clear that some providers are going up to that line, and maybe beyond it,” he said.

Gaind cited the case of the doctor who drove his patient to receive MAID as a troubling example of the medical profession going overboard with euthanasia.

“This poor guy could not get access to medical treatment for his addictions but he could be chauffeured by our medical practitioner to receive death. I think there is something deeply wrong with that,” he said.

Gaind thought Mr. A.’s doctors put a very heavy thumb on the suicide scale by giving him a vague and medically unsupported diagnosis of “post-vaccine syndrome” and downplaying the possibility that his treatable mental issues could have been causing his physical symptoms.

At the current time, MAID is not supposed to be provided for people who have only mental illness. Canada was planning to legalize MAID for mental illness at the beginning of this year, but the plan was delayed when doctors, politicians, and the public grew squeamish. Almost 20 percent of the Canadian population is estimated to be suffering from some form of “mental health challenges.”

The Ontario review committee found that Canadians are already being euthanized for mental issues, such as “unmet social needs.” Ontario residents have requested MAID because they were worried about becoming homeless. Mr. A. was unemployed and felt “socially vulnerable and isolated.”

“To finally have a government report that recognizes these cases of concern is extremely important. We’ve been gaslit for so many years when we raised fears about people getting MAiD because they were poor, disabled or socially isolated,” committee member Dr. Ramona Coelho told the Associated Press (AP) last week.

The AP noted the troubling implication in Ontario’s data that MAID for people who are not suffering from terminal illnesses, or unmanageable physical pain, appears to be much more common in the “poorest and most deprived areas” of the province.