Meunier, a disabled man who wasn’t ready to die, nevertheless chose medical assistance in dying (MAiD) after a 96-hour wait in a Montreal emergency room left him so much more disabled, he felt it was his only option.
Before deciding that medical assistance in dying (MAiD) was preferable to more medical trauma, Mr. Meunier was told the sore — a gaping hole a few centimetres in diameter — would, at best, take several months to heal, according to the experts they consulted.
According to his partner, he underwent two debridements in one month — a treatment in which dead or infected tissue is scraped from wounds to help them get better.
In a tearful interview with CBC, Meunier revealed why he chose medical assistance in dying (MAiD): “I don’t want to be a burden. At any rate, the medical opinions say I won’t be a burden for long; as the old folks say, it’s better to kick the can.”
He died at home on March 29. (source)
In the wake of the news of Meunier’s death, it emerged that this tragic outcome could have been avoided if either a nurse had contacted another hospital department and ordered the special mattress Meunier needed to protect against bedsores, or if staff had turned him every 2 hours while he waited for triage/admission.
The British Medical Journal released a paper on the case yesterday.
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