Quebecers who have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease will be able to make an advance request for medical assistance in dying as of October 30. Like a will, they will be able to fill out a form in anticipation of the moment when they can no longer consent to care. Requested for a long time, this expansion is welcomed with relief by patients, even if doctors have reservations about its implementation.
Suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, Gilles Marsolais plans to make a request for early medical assistance in dying this fall. At 89 years old, he refuses to become a burden to himself, his loved ones or even society.
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“You shouldn’t live a life without life, for me, that’s absolute. Life is beautiful… but on condition that it is lived,” pleads the elder from Richelieu, in Montérégie.
Quebec’s announcement allowing advance requests, as of October 30, has taken a weight off its shoulders. Gilles Marsolais, who worked for more than 40 years in the world of Quebec theater, was diagnosed with slowly progressive Alzheimer’s disease in 2019.
“I don’t want to be pitied,” he said of his decision and his choice to speak publicly about it for the first time. But I have lived longer than the average person, with iron health. What more can I ask for?”
Not like his mother
About twenty years ago, he saw his mother go “to the end” of Alzheimer’s disease.
“It’s abominable,” says Mr. Marsolais, on the state of absolute dependence caused by these neurological disorders.
“The last lucid thing she said to me, looking me in the eyes, was: ‘If I wasn’t Catholic, I would shoot myself in the head,’” he says, eyes filled with water.
The octogenarian also saw his partner’s mother live for two years in a vegetative state in a CHSLD, due to a neurodegenerative disease.
Photo Agence QMI, JOEL LEMAY
“The other side of the coin of medical progress is also that we can make people last for months, years… even though they are there, lying down,” he illustrates.
Personal choice
Gilles Marsolais informed his two children and two grandchildren, who respect his decision. He does not yet know at what stage he plans to decide to die, but completing the form will provide him with security if his condition deteriorates quickly.
For him, early medical assistance in dying is progress and he is sorry for the critics who see it as a way of getting rid of sick people.
“What does that mean to whom if I no longer have quality of life?”, he argues. And the messy state of the health network does not affect his decision.
“We are asked to be autonomous all our lives, so why take that autonomy away from us?”
For the moment, he is in no hurry. Despite the memory lapses that plague his daily life, he still finds pleasure in writing. Which he does every day, just slower, he laughs.
You can consult the guide from the Ministry of Health and Social Services ici.
