A Canadian with a chronic, painful disability says he feels "pillaged" and "traumatized" after being denied good care, yet offered euthanasia "multiple times."Roger Foley, 49, shared his story with filmmaker Amanda Achtman as part of her series Dying to Meet You."I was born in Ottawa, Ontario. As a kid, I was I was very sick. And I was very uncoordinated and always tired. And then they didn't really have a lot of testing of what I ended up being diagnosed with. So I just thought I'm lazy, I can work through it," Foley recalled."I grew up with my father and he was a former World War Two veteran, and he had a lot of perseverance. And I guess that rubbed off on me. When he passed away, it was really hard."Although the video does not describe Foley's condition, he said his pain was so severe he could not "even function" without medication. Foley spoke from a hospital bed, not at home as he preferred to be. He said he was "worked at" not "worked with.""To give an example, I get a worker to help me get into the tub. So, I'm washing myself in the tub, and I'm ready for help to get help transferring out of the tub, and I call and I don't get an answer. And I crawl out of the tub and everything is slippery, and I can't — I don't have full control of my limbs," Foley recalled."As I'm crawling down my hallway, I hear a snore and he's stretched out on one of my chairs in a deep sleep, and I'm like, 'What do I do here?' And keep in mind I'm like, wet, I'm naked. It's not dignifying at all. But I report it to the agency and then he confessed. And the agency, they really didn't care."Asked if he had been offered medical assistance in dying (MAiD), Foley said, "multiple times.""One time, he asked me, do you have any thoughts of self-harm? I'm honest with him and tell him, I do think about ending my life because of what I'm going through, being prevented from the resources that I need to live safely back at home.""And from out of nowhere, he just pulls out, 'Well, if you don't get self-directed funding, you can always apply for an assisted, you know what I mean?' You feel so pillaged."The medical system that encouraged Foley to die instead of live has only made his struggle deeper."It's completely traumatized me. Now it's this overlying option, where in my situation when I say I'm suicidial, I'm met with, 'Well, you know, the hospital has a program to help you with that if you wanted to end your life.'"That didn't exist before MAiD was legalized. But now it's there. There is not going to be a second within the rest of my life that I'm not going to have flashbacks to it, the devaluing of me and all that I am."Foley said the idea that only religious people want to prevent MAiD in Canada is false."That's the ultimate gaslighting statement. Like I'm not religious, I respect people who are religious. Saying that it's just religious persons who oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide are completely wrong," Foley said."And these people usually say it, they have an ableist mindset, and they look at persons with disabilities and see us as just better off dead and a waste of resources."In spite of his present circumstances, Foley envisions times ahead."The thing that gives me hope is that one day this titanium wall of a system, I'll be able to, to break through it and get access to the resources that I need and to live at home with workers who want to work with me, and I want to work with them. And we can work as a team."I have a passion to live. Like I, I don't want to give up my life."
A Canadian with a chronic, painful disability says he feels "pillaged" and "traumatized" after being denied good care, yet offered euthanasia "multiple times."Roger Foley, 49, shared his story with filmmaker Amanda Achtman as part of her series Dying to Meet You."I was born in Ottawa, Ontario. As a kid, I was I was very sick. And I was very uncoordinated and always tired. And then they didn't really have a lot of testing of what I ended up being diagnosed with. So I just thought I'm lazy, I can work through it," Foley recalled."I grew up with my father and he was a former World War Two veteran, and he had a lot of perseverance. And I guess that rubbed off on me. When he passed away, it was really hard."Although the video does not describe Foley's condition, he said his pain was so severe he could not "even function" without medication. Foley spoke from a hospital bed, not at home as he preferred to be. He said he was "worked at" not "worked with.""To give an example, I get a worker to help me get into the tub. So, I'm washing myself in the tub, and I'm ready for help to get help transferring out of the tub, and I call and I don't get an answer. And I crawl out of the tub and everything is slippery, and I can't — I don't have full control of my limbs," Foley recalled."As I'm crawling down my hallway, I hear a snore and he's stretched out on one of my chairs in a deep sleep, and I'm like, 'What do I do here?' And keep in mind I'm like, wet, I'm naked. It's not dignifying at all. But I report it to the agency and then he confessed. And the agency, they really didn't care."Asked if he had been offered medical assistance in dying (MAiD), Foley said, "multiple times.""One time, he asked me, do you have any thoughts of self-harm? I'm honest with him and tell him, I do think about ending my life because of what I'm going through, being prevented from the resources that I need to live safely back at home.""And from out of nowhere, he just pulls out, 'Well, if you don't get self-directed funding, you can always apply for an assisted, you know what I mean?' You feel so pillaged."The medical system that encouraged Foley to die instead of live has only made his struggle deeper."It's completely traumatized me. Now it's this overlying option, where in my situation when I say I'm suicidial, I'm met with, 'Well, you know, the hospital has a program to help you with that if you wanted to end your life.'"That didn't exist before MAiD was legalized. But now it's there. There is not going to be a second within the rest of my life that I'm not going to have flashbacks to it, the devaluing of me and all that I am."Foley said the idea that only religious people want to prevent MAiD in Canada is false."That's the ultimate gaslighting statement. Like I'm not religious, I respect people who are religious. Saying that it's just religious persons who oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide are completely wrong," Foley said."And these people usually say it, they have an ableist mindset, and they look at persons with disabilities and see us as just better off dead and a waste of resources."In spite of his present circumstances, Foley envisions times ahead."The thing that gives me hope is that one day this titanium wall of a system, I'll be able to, to break through it and get access to the resources that I need and to live at home with workers who want to work with me, and I want to work with them. And we can work as a team."I have a passion to live. Like I, I don't want to give up my life."
