The Right to Survive

National Post

Tuesday December 12, 2006

"They simply took away my husband's right to survive," said Wendy Yeung-Chen, the woman highlighted in yesterday's Post story about how Canadian physicians can make life-and death decisions even over the objections of patients' family members.

At present, Canada has only a patchwork system for dealing with the choice to extend or deny life-supporting treatment to the severely ill - a system that in many instances leaves incapacitated patients vulnerable to the unfettered discretion of third parties. This is what happened to Mrs. Yeung-Chen's husband, Moorix Yeung, when a Halifax hospital imposed a do-not-resuscitate order on the terminally ill man despite his despite his wife's pleas to keep him alive to allow a Chinese healer to treat him.

In many provinces, the fate of a patient in Mr. Yeung's situation could be determined by a single doctor, who would not be required to get a family member or a court consent to a do-not-resuscitate order. As we have editorialized before, the better approach would be to encourage Canadians to set out their treatment wishes in detailed "living wills," and to require hospitals to abide by these instructions unless they are patently unreasonable.

Where patients have failed to express their wishes in writing, provinces should set out clear standards that err on the side of keeping patients alive until their, or their guardian's, last hope has been extinguished. Physician's good judgment notwithstanding, no patient should be denied the right to survive.

©National Post 2006