My colleague Sonu Gaind M.D., past president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association, published the above [titled] article this week in the Psychiatric Times.
In it, he argues that there is no such thing as an “end stage” psychiatric disorder anywhere in the world’s literature, nor can any clinician accurately identify which psychiatric patients are actually “irremediable” or “untreatable.” In fact, he explains that postulating this construct is a calculated strategy by those specifically trying to open physician assisted suicide and euthanasia to the mentally ill, by harnessing buzzwords used in statutes permitting these procedures for other medical illnesses. Similar, is the role of proffering the term “palliative psychiatry."
He also notes “widespread evidence" that expanding eligibility for these procedures beyond truly verifiable end-of-life-conditions (which psychiatric conditions are NOT) risks marginalized populations, who have lesser access to state-of-the-art psychiatric treatment.