First death by voluntary euthanasia in Quebec is confirmed

A terminally ill patient’s life has been ended by a physician’s injection in a Quebec City hospital, the first case of legal voluntary euthanasia ever carried out by a doctor in North America. Quebec legalised voluntary euthanasia in December.1

The case was confirmed to CBC News by a spokeswoman for the Quebec City regional health authority, who said that a second patient’s request is being reviewed. No details about either case will be released.

Georges L’Espérance, a physician and president of the Quebec Association for the Right to Die with Dignity, told the National Post that he had been informed of two other cases of euthanasia this month, both in the Montreal area.

He said that this apparent pace was unlikely to change. “Considering our population here and what has happened in other countries, I would be very surprised if we have more than 50 or 60 cases in the first year,” he said.

CBC News contacted all 28 regional health authorities in the province in an attempt to count cases of euthanasia in the law’s first month. Some refused to share any information, noting that they would be submitting a report by law later this year. Others confirmed that they had received no requests for euthanasia. Only Quebec City has reported a death.

Each health authority must submit a report on its euthanasia cases every six months to a newly formed Commission on End of Life Care, which will compile annual reports, the first of which is due at the end of September.

The public’s first glimpse of data on the practice of euthanasia in Quebec is expected in June, when Montreal health authorities say they will make some preliminary data available on their websites.

Quebec’s law, which has been in force since 10 December, allows patients to seek medical help to die if they are incurably ill, at the end of life, and experiencing unbearable physical or psychological pain. Alone of North American jurisdictions, Quebec allows voluntary euthanasia, in which the physician administers the lethal drug by injection rather than simply prescribing it for the patient to take orally.

Colombia is the only other country in the western hemisphere to permit voluntary euthanasia. A 79 year old man with throat cancer, Ovideo Gonzalez, became the first person in the Americas to undergo voluntary euthanasia last July.

The other provinces of Canada are awaiting a federal death with dignity act, which the new Liberal government in Ottawa is scrambling to put together after its October election victory. A year ago Canada’s Supreme Court struck down the country’s longstanding criminal law against assisting patients to die but allowed the law to stand for 12 more months to give the government time to craft right to die legislation. The Conservative government of the day, opposed to assisted dying, did not do so, and the new Liberal government asked for a six month extension to the criminal penalty while it works on legislation.

On 15 January the Supreme Court granted a four month extension to the criminal law. After that, it will no longer be illegal for a physician to help a patient to die anywhere in Canada. Doctors in Quebec are not bound by the criminal prohibition even now, the court said, as they have provincial right to die legislation. Patients outside Quebec who want a doctor’s assistance to die in the next four months can apply to their provincial superior courts for judicial authorisation, the court said.