Ryan Tumilty of Metro News Ottawa reported on February 13th that 28 people in Ottawa have died “with the help of a physician ” since the passage of Bill C-14 in June 2016.

These 28 deaths by euthanasia or assisted suicide occurred in hospital, at home or in a nursing care centre. These are the numbers provided up to February 3.

Ontario recorded 250 deaths by euthanasia or assisted suicide since June 2016.

There is no breakdown in the figures released as to how many deaths were the result of euthanasia by lethal injection and how many were cases of assisted suicide where the physician or nurse practitioner provides a prescription for a lethal dose of drugs.

Mr. Tumilty writes that doctors have been telling the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) that “they struggle with taking part in assisted death procedures.” Jeff Blackmer of the CMA told Metro News Ottawa that  “They will say, it was just too difficult and too traumatizing physiologically and it is not something I will go through again,” he said. They really struggle with it, and for some of those that it is the only one they will do.”

According to this report, some provinces maintain a list of physicians who may be willing to take part in euthanasia or assisted suicide. These lists we are informed are “getting shorter.”

Stephen Chang-Fong, spokesperson for the Ottawa Hospital emailed Mr. Tumilty stating that “they understand that physicians may not be willing to take part in assisted deaths.”

Mr. Chang Fong said: “We will be respectful of all heath-care providers at the hospital by recognizing their right to conscientiously refuse to participate.”

To those physicians or nurse practitioners who do engage in euthanasia or assisted suicide, the Ottawa Hospital offers “resilience training.”

The purpose of this resilience training is to help staff “manage the stress” that comes with being involved in these death practices which the spokesperson calls end of life care.

Euthanasia and assisted suicide are not end of life care but rather they are the end of all care. So killing patients is not easy for some health care staff. The solution is not resilience training but to stop killing patients. Killing is not health care.