I hope you can take the time to read this. My English is far from perfect, but it’s a story I thought was important to share and why I think more people should be worried about MAID for people in Poverty with disabilities.

Summery of MAID

MAID stands for “Medical assistance in dying”. It was brought in 2021 into Canada and started out for people with Physical disabilities that they could not live with and made life unbearable. Someone who’s fire might feel on fire all the time or a big chunk of their life who have been to hell and back and can’t find relief and function and just don’t want to be here anymore and might not even be able to commit self harm due to how badly their medical condition is…

Now we take you to the Updated MAID in 2022 for people with Mental Health problems. The same example could exist above, but instead be all mental health issues that for example someone might not be able to focus, always depressed, can’t make friends, schizophrenia, you name it… They been to every Doctor and Therapist and they just can’t handle it anymore and they want it to end.

Why I’m Against it and an example of imagine being in the shoe’s of someone in Dire Poverty with a Disability.

So you might ask, why I’m against MAID at least till Poverty is Solved in Canada?
Well it’s quite simple and I’m using some personal examples as well as stories have told me over the years. As many of you know I’m an advocate for Disabilities especially trying to fix Poverty for people with Disabilities.

Imagine living in a Basement sharing a 3 bedroom Apartment. Your entrance is a set of steep stairs and you have not only a physical disability but also a mental disability. Your Physical Disability does not allow you proper freedom into the Basement apt and you either need someone to help you step by step down, or you might need to crawl on your hands and knee’s and due to how steep these stairs are you are more then likely forced to go down on your bum. This process could take 10-15 minutes depending on your issue. You in this story have severe chronic pain throughout your entire body that is like pin and needles and not the kind when your arm goes numb, but more like someone just cut off a limb and the pain receptors are on fire and you are not in shock….

Once you get inside you get attitude with one of your roommates who wanted to go outside and had to wait for you. You go to your room and cry and try to forget your day. Why did one interaction ruin your day? It did not… It was you at the Doctors office again because the ODSP wants to make sure your disability not magically healed and wasting not only your time, but the doctors time. You go through a battery of tests on your own no family they abandoned you. Your Doctor asks a lot of questions but half way through you just lose all attention and say whaaat?? It’s your Brain Fog kicking in.. The Mental Part of your disability that hits you hard and at random that is like a Train hitting you, but instead just the cold, background sound of a train passing on in the distance. You can’t focus anymore and the voices kind of scream at you when you hear them, but you can’t latch onto them as much as you want to and just want to close your eyes and go to sleep….

This is just one the many things people on ODSP have to go through when it comes to dealing with Doctors and the Government. Every mistake they make is your mistake, every extra cent they pay you more is your mistake, you are a burden to them and you are treated like a convict, but without all the amenities.

Moving on you get into your room and decide to go through some of your possession, but forgot you lost most of them recently due to the moisture damage of the basement. Your Kitchen Fan is not actually connected outside, you don’t have a bathroom fan and there is no AC, but rather just the cold damp basement that creates a lot of condensation in the basement. Remember it’s not just you but your other roommates as well. You don’t have the energy to deal with it right now and the smell is making you sick to your stomach so you end up going to bed and having a nap in your damp feeling sheets.

You wake up a little later and get a Phone call! Something you spent most of your extra money to keep in contact with doctors, ODSP, and your PSW… It’s your PSW giving you third degree and saying the door is locked. You tell her you can’t make it up the stairs and ask for help, but the roommates are either ignoring you or don’t care… You tell her sorry and she tells you she is going to report you again….

You decided you have to Pee really really bad… You are in a lot of pain so you can’t use your forearm crutches and can’t get an electric wheelchair or scooter because you don’t meet the requirements and instead just crawl to the Bathroom. Thankfully it’s carpeted floor. Sadly it smells bad and feels damp… Oh no someone is in the Bathroom and you knock saying if you can use it. The other girl tells you no and you say you will be quick and she just ignores you.. You hear humming and it sounds like she might be doing something in the mirror not even using the bathroom to it’s fullest. After a bit you hear her finally move like she is about to leave and then all the sudden you hear the shower running… It’s too late you have just wetted yourself because you could not hold it in.

Now you are crawling to the kitchen to get supplies to clean up your mess. Your roommate finally comes out and starts screaming at you and yelling at you and calling you a sick person. You apologies as you never let your mood go sour and always take the higher ground. After you clean up best you can, you clean yourself up as much as you can and head back to the room after using the bathroom.

Sadly Shower day would of been Today, but the PSW was not able to make it inside and now you have to wait till next week. Sadly last week you were too much pain to have a shower due to a really bad flare-up and looking forward to it this week and means you will be without a shower for 3 weeks by the time the PSW is back next week.

As much as you are a happy person you have no working Laptop, Your Phone is very old and basic. Mostly just to make calls sometimes emails work, but you have a lot of “technical” issues with the device. You have nothing to do, you don’t own a TV you can’t afford one. You can’t read because you lost that ability once your mental health problems started with the Physical pain. Your immature eye was bad but now you always get migraines when trying to read more then a paragraph.

You think you better get to bed soon because tomorrow is payday and you need to head to the bank, buy what little you have left after all the costs and make it to the Food Bank and see if you can get someone to actually deliver this month as they forgot last Month. You have to wake up at 7am to book your Handy Bus at 8am, but you have to hope to get through as many other people will be as well and they only have enough seats / people they can handle per day.. Tomorrow is going to be a another rough day…

After all this and with all your problems that you deal with your positive super nice cheerfulness fades away. Over the Months, and Years you slowly break and now you don’t just have your main physical / mental health issues you develop new ones. You gain new Physical ones due to the way you move around without proper equipment. Your mental health goes really bad into depression and other aliments… Things are not looking great…..

If you got this far in this “story” you might thinking that MAID service might sound amazing right now. But think about this. Almost everything above could of been solved by putting their person at the Poverty Line. Not even Over it like most people suggest when dealing with Basic Income and people with Disabilities getting extra, but just at or slightly below the Poverty Line.

Now Imagine having Money to put you at or near the Poverty Line!

An Apartment without stairs, No roommates and your own bathroom! You have a bit of extra money so you have entertainment like a TV or a working computer or maybe even both if you are decent with your money. You can get some basic automation, get a automated lock on the door, a Camera to help you see if someone shows up to know who you let in or don’t let in. Because you now have your own place and you have a bit of money you start to go out to the occasional movie or even eat how at a very unexpensive restaurant. You start meeting people and making friends.

Things are not only great but even better. Because of living at a place with an elevator and no stairs you are qualified for a Scooter! Normally you can only get one if you can use it from your bed to inside your home and out. But because the stairs in the other version you could not… The Scooter alone changed your life. You still use the Handy Bus, but now you have more energy, your able to store things. You even visit more then one store to browse around and meet people and earn a new confidence you never had before.

As time goes on you are so confident and feel less of a burden to yourself and others you able to even partake doing part time work. Not a ton and not enough to make a living from, but something to allow you to contribute a bit to society to help turn you more human and engage with other people… This overtime turns into a love story and you fall in love and get married and have wonderful kids and a loving partner the END!

Consulion?

Fix Poverty before bring Suicide Booths into our Country. The Booths are a slight humor even crude humor… The point is if we can’t even feed, shelter and clothe are most vulnerable people, then why we offering them a death a free pass to death? Everything I said above would qualify for MAID and one simple thing changed the persons life for the better… Yet we rather let them kill themselves as it’s cheaper for society? Where is the sense in that? Humans are meant to adapt, and grow and better the human race… Why we only bettering a few lives?

I’m tired and now worn-out.. I might start going on too much and I’m sure I already have. I really hope you can spread this story as an example of why we need to do better for our people with disabilities in Canada and the World!