This promises to be a big, complicated, multi-faceted section of the library. There are SO many topics of relevance to be covered.
We need to talk about the experiences of disabled people in hospitals and doctors offices, everywhere from the big urban centres to the far-flung frozen north.
We need to talk about the social determinants of health: what they are and how often they’re taken into account (or not!) in our healthcare systems.
We need to talk about Direct Funding programs vs. systems of care that put other people in charge of supports for daily living.
We need to talk about equipment funding, and what to do if there isn’t any in your area.
We need to talk about housing!! Income supports!! Basic stress relief!
We need to talk about end-of-life planning. Or do we?
We need to understand more about what palliative care is and what it is not, how easy or hard it is to access, how “dying” we need to be before we can get it, that sort of thing. Can a person who’s not dying, just living with really troublesome symptoms like pain or incontinence or anxiety, qualify for a palliative consultation?
And we need to ask this important question: Is making a person dead really taking care of their health? How did making a person dead become a “right” in every provincial and territorial healthcare system in the country, whereas pain relief and suicide prevention remain optional and chronically underfunded?
And so many more topics. Please participate in building this part of the library!
RESOURCES:
The Journal of Ethics in Mental Health published a special issue devoted to about 30 articles and responses about assisted dying in the context of mental health care. Each article can be read and downloaded as a pdf document. Articles date back to 2016 and go up to February, 2022
