A study shows MAiD eligibility can have a highly varied timeline for what is considered a reasonably foreseeable death — depending on the MAiD assessor a patient gets. "For reasonably foreseeable natural death — some people [MAiD assessors] consider weeks and months, some people consider it five years," stated Ramona Coelho, a family physician, to the feds' Special Joint Committee on MAiD Tuesday.Coelho is referencing a 2026 study on how assessors determined patient eligibility under the criteria of Track 2 MAiD deaths.Track 2 MAiD patients are those who have a serious, incurable condition causing intolerable suffering, but are not approaching their natural death..The study found, from interviews with more than 20 MAiD assessors, the reasonable foreseeability of a Track 2 death fell within a varied timeframe of 6 months to five years.Coelho deems inter-assessor variability "wide" as the study shows.Some of the MAiD assessors even acknowledged the subjectivity of what defines irremediable suffering — a prerequisite for Track 2 — with many saying they are still "developing" a definition for "what they [assessors] imagined to be suffering compared with what some applicants described as their suffering."Assessors also admitted they had trouble determining whether patients were given reasonable opportunities to relieve their suffering through other means..They claimed some forms of treatment were not accessible to patients due to their location, like living in rural or remote areas, or if they could not afford to travel for treatment financially or physically.Assessors also struggled to come to a consensus on what qualifies as "reasonable" to begin with.In cases where MAiD patients refused a surgery doctors suggested would have a reasonable chance of success at alleviating suffering due to the patient's long history of treatment and fear of negative effects on their quality of life during the recovery process — MAiD assessors often found cases like these "difficult to reconcile."MAiD assessors even go as far as stating they try not to look at a person's social circumstances — whether the patient is in poverty, experiencing food insecurity, has unstable housing, or past traumas — because this would "discriminate against those experiencing such challenges." .They claimed they would only look at a patient's eligibility criteria under Track 2. "We can't fool ourselves that MAiD providers get it right every time," stated Coelho."That's why the MAiD Death Review Committee (MDRC) cases [Ontario] exists.""In particular, the stats from the MDRC reveal that Track 2 cases reflect high social vulnerability and untreated mental illness."
