this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2024
27 points (100.0% liked)
Canada
7203 readers
158 users here now
What's going on Canada?
Communities
π Meta
πΊοΈ Provinces / Territories
- Alberta
- British Columbia
- Manitoba
- New Brunswick
- Newfoundland and Labrador
- Northwest Territories
- Nova Scotia
- Nunavut
- Ontario
- Prince Edward Island
- Quebec
- Saskatchewan
- Yukon
ποΈ Cities / Local Communities
- Calgary (AB)
- Edmonton (AB)
- Greater Sudbury (ON)
- Halifax (NS)
- Hamilton (ON)
- Kootenays (BC)
- London (ON)
- Mississauga (ON)
- Montreal (QC)
- Nanaimo (BC)
- Oceanside (BC)
- Ottawa (ON)
- Port Alberni (BC)
- Regina (SK)
- Saskatoon (SK)
- Thunder Bay (ON)
- Toronto (ON)
- Vancouver (BC)
- Vancouver Island (BC)
- Victoria (BC)
- Waterloo (ON)
- Winnipeg (MB)
π Sports
Hockey
- List of All Teams: Post on /c/hockey
- General Community: /c/Hockey
- Calgary Flames
- Edmonton Oilers
- MontrΓ©al Canadiens
- Ottawa Senators
- Toronto Maple Leafs
- Vancouver Canucks
- Winnipeg Jets
Football (NFL)
- List of All Teams:
unknown
Football (CFL)
- List of All Teams:
unknown
Baseball
- List of All Teams:
unknown - Toronto Blue Jays
Basketball
- List of All Teams:
unknown - Toronto Raptors
Soccer
- List of All Teams:
unknown - General Community: /c/CanadaSoccer
- Toronto FC
π» Universities
π΅ Finance / Shopping
- Personal Finance Canada
- BAPCSalesCanada
- Canadian Investor
- Buy Canadian
- Quebec Finance
- Churning Canada
π£οΈ Politics
- Canada Politics
- General:
- By Province:
π Social and Culture
Rules
Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage:
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
In my opinion not expanding it to mental illness is short sighted.
Many people suffer in silence, or donβt let known the extent of their feelings of their mental illness and this could be an opportunity to open a dialogue with their doctor.
This could be an opportunity to let known the extent of their illness and seek alternative treatments before MAID as part of the requirements.
If people are at that point it may happen anyway but without anyone knowing how bad it had become.
To me, this is the crux of it:
If mental health supports in this country were anything close to adequate, it would be a different conversation.
Instead, we should force them to keep suffering until we fix the supports.
Great idea.
Uh, yeah, because once dying is the recommended alternative to fixing the mental health care system, there's going to be less demand, and government will use that as an excuse to not fix the fucking problem.
Ah yes, keep the suffering as high as possible for some people in order to put pressure on fixing the system.
That isn't cruel at all.
20 years ago when I was well I thought it was a great idea. Things look differently when you have been suffering needlessly for a decade because proven treatment that could help you simply isn't offered unless you are wealthy. Whatever you might think of what it does to the "level of suffering," it is simply not an acceptable compromise for our government to offer MAID in place of treatment under any circumstances.
Yet they aren't going to offer significantly better treatment, so if that's not an option, why shouldn't MAID be?
It's not like hiring 10% more specialists will fix this, the volume of people needing help is way higher than that. You can yell all you want about wanting better treatment, the rest of us want to be realistic given the resources available. We probably need 500% more specialists, and there's simply no way to train or pay that many people.
The only way this problem gets solved is if we manage to create an AI that can successfully treat millions of people at the same time. It will likely happen at some point, but that point is not today, or even this decade likely. Until then, I'd like people to have options to retain their dignity.
Fine, if it's not an option. But it IS an option. Other countries can treat their ill. Fuck, THIS country could do it 40 years ago.
If we can spend money on MAID, we can spend money on treatment. There is absolutely no reason that we could not be offering treatment. If there was, then great. But it's simply being withheld for fucking ideological bullshit.
How much do you think it costs to render MAID?? It's not fucking cheap! Not even counting the societal cost. And if your argument really boils down to, "it's cheaper to kill people than to treat them," then sir, fuck you so hard.
I am one of those people you are talking about. Stop talking on my behalf, listen more.
Other countries have mental health crisises as well. I can't name a single first world country that has enough mental health support available to everyone. It's very very difficult given that most people won't even talk about their problems.
Maid is cheap, but my argument has nothing to do with that. Maid is a personal choice, and I think everyone deserves that right.