‘The solution is assisted life’: Offered death, terminally ill Ont. man files lawsuit

CTV News 15 March 2018
Family First Comment: Another example – this time from Canada – of why ‘safeguards’ are an illusion.
“A landmark lawsuit has been filed by an Ontario man suffering from an incurable neurological disease. He alleges that health officials will not provide him with an assisted home care team of his choosing, instead offering, among other things, medically assisted death. “My condition is grievous and irremediable,” 42-year-old Roger Foley said from his bed. “But the solution is assisted life with self-directed funding.”
www.protect.org.nz

A landmark lawsuit has been filed by an Ontario man suffering from an incurable neurological disease. He alleges that health officials will not provide him with an assisted home care team of his choosing, instead offering, among other things, medically assisted death.

“My condition is grievous and irremediable,” 42-year-old Roger Foley said from his bed at the London Health Science Centre’s Victoria Hospital in a video that was recently posted online. “But the solution is assisted life with self-directed funding.”

According to Foley, a government-selected home care provider had previously left him in ill health with injuries and food poisoning. Unwilling to continue living at home with the help of that home care provider, and eager to leave the London hospital where he’s been cloistered for two years, Foley is suing the hospital, several health agencies and the attorneys general of Ontario and Canada in the hopes of being given the opportunity to set up a health care team to help him live at home again — a request he claims he has previously been denied. “I have no desire to take up a valuable hospital bed,” Foley explained. “But at this point, it’s my only option.”

Foley suffers from cerebellar ataxia, a brain disorder that limits his ability to move his arms and legs. The condition leaves him unable to perform mundane tasks on his own, like feeding himself. He also has trouble holding himself upright. Because of the condition, he even has difficulty speaking.

“Unfortunately, my life story is narrated through the horrible prism of a progressive neurodegenerative disease,” Foley said with an audible tremor in his voice. “I have gone from being an active person to, on some days, not even being able to get out of bed.”

Because Foley suffers from a terminal and incurable disorder, he qualifies for medically assisted death. But Foley does not want to die — he simply wants to live at home.
READ MORE & VIEW VIDEO: https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/the-solution-is-assisted-life-offered-death-terminally-ill-ont-man-files-lawsuit-1.3845190