Skip to content

Medical-assisted death in NWT confirmed

An NWT resident has been granted their constitutional right to die with dignity through accessing medical assistance in death (MAID), NWT Chief Coroner Cathy Menard has confirmed.

"There's one that has occurred," Menard told News/North.

Citing privacy concerns, the territorial government's Department of Health and Social Services – the body responsible for introducing jurisdictional guidelines for assisted death in adherence with the federal legislative framework – declined to comment on "specific numbers" for requests and deaths in NWT when asked to provide further details about the confirmed case.

NWT Chief Coroner Cathy Menard confirmed to Yellowknifer a case of medically-assisted death has occurred in the territory. NNSL file photo.

With little information to go on, one expert says the GNWT's decision to stay mum on numbers only raises more questions and leaves Canadians – and particularly Northerners – in the dark.

"We have absolutely no data on the three territories. So this is the first time I've heard of an assisted death," Shanaaz Gokool, CEO of right-to-die advocacy group Dying with Dignity Canada, told News/North.

"(NWT) has a fairly small population, and so I can understand to some degree why they may be more hesitant. However, the government of Canada is required to report on MAID ... and to co-operate with all the regions but for whatever reason, we just haven't been able to get that information – and there are a lot of questions," Gokook said.

Questions – and concerns – she says, like whether or not applicants seeking MAID in remote Northern communities have adequate access, or whether hospitals are opting out of providing medically-assisted deaths, a trend Gokook said she is seeing in Ontario.

"We don't know how hard it is find a doctor or a nurse practitioner," she said. "There's a whole lot of potentially problematic access pieces that we just don't know."

"It might be very difficult for people to know where they can go to get the help they need. This is a problem in urban centres so I can just imagine it's being amplified in (NWT)." said Gokook.

Along with Nunavut and the Yukon, NWT is one of only three jurisdictions in the country that have not reported any medically-assisted death numbers or statistics to the federal government since legalization in June of 2016.

Under the federal legislation, the Medical Assistance in Dying Act, the minister of health is tasked with making regulations to collect information and "publicly report on medical assistance in dying in Canada."

This stipulation has seen most provinces provide medically-assisted death numbers, demographics and statistics, including numbers for clinician and self-administered deaths.

But since much of the responsibility in terms of delivering health care services falls on provincial and territorial governments, specific protocols and polices related to the "implementation and reporting of medical assistance in dying" vary widely between jurisdictions, according to the federal government's website.

As a result, the GNWT has opted not to disclose information related to MAID deaths in the territory, citing NWT's "small numbers" in its justification to withhold information on the grounds of privacy.

Under the GNWT's current Medical Assistance in Dying Interim Guidelines, it's stipulated that the "collection, use, disclosure, management, retention and disposal of information related to assistance in dying ... must adhere to existing privacy legislation, standards, and policies."

Subsequently, numbers of assisted deaths in NWT are not included in either of the Liberal government's two national interim reports, meaning there is scarce information on how post-legislation practices are playing out in the territory.

Under the GNWT's interim guidelines, a central co-ordinating service has been established to support access to practitioners willing to "access, and if applicable, provide medical assistance for dying." Patients, regardless of where they live in the territory, are able to contact the service.

In an email, Health and Social Services communications manager Damien Healy stated the GNWT guidelines will remain interim until the federal government issues reports on the review of whether or not "mature minors, advance directives and mental illness will be included within the federal legislative framework."

Healy added the interim guidelines will stay in place until "the federal regulations to establish a national reporting regime on MAID are finalized."

"GNWT will update its guidelines once the federal work is completed," he stated.

Between January 2017 and June 30, 2017, 1,179 Canadians, with an average age of 73, ended their lives with medically-assisted suicide.