‘ What worries me is how I’m going to die’
Infection disease specialist made plea for doctor- assisted suicide days before his death
Dr. Donald Low, an infectious disease specialist who became a public face in the SARS crisis of 2003, wasn’t afraid of dying.
It was how death would come that frightened him.
In a moving, deeply personal and compelling message captured in a video filmed eight days before he died from a brain tumour, Low accused Canada of not having the maturity to take on one of the most emotionally charged issues in medicine: doctor- assisted death.
In the video, posted to YouTube on Tuesday, Low describes the toll cancer had taken on him physically — the debilitating effects on “my vision, my hearing, my strength.”
“I’m worried about how it’s going to end,” Low said, leaning back into a couch, his right eye almost entirely closed.
“I know it’s going to end, it’s never going to get better. So, I’m going to die. What worries me is how I’m going to die,” he said. “Am I going to end up being paralyzed and have to be carried from the bathroom to the bed? Am I going to have trouble swallowing? I won’t be able to take in food? What the end is going to look like, that’s what’s bothering me the most.”
In the video, Low said he hoped to die a painless death in his sleep. He hoped to face death “without the fear of death itself.” But he worried death would be long and protracted, and that he would not be able “to carry out my normal bodily functions, and talk with my family and enjoy the last few days of my life.”
When he realized he had a disease that was terminal, Low said he looked into ways to control his own death. He described the combination of narcotics and life- ending drugs used in countries where assisted dying is legal “that give you a very simple way out. It’s
Why make people suffer for no reason, when there’s an alternative? I just don’t understand it.
DR. DONALD LOW
INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST
drinking a cocktail, and you fall asleep …”
But Canada’s Criminal Code outlaws euthanasia and doctorassisted suicide, decreeing it an offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
“What surprised me the most was the objection to it, the inability to do it in Canada,” Low said on the video.
Unlike countries such as Switzerland and the Netherlands, “in Canada, it’s illegal and it’ll be a long time before we mature to a level where we accept dying with dignity,” he said. “Why make people suffer for no reason, when there’s an alternative? I just don’t understand it.”
He said he wished those who opposed doctor- assisted death, including doctors, could “live in my body for 24 hours … I’m just frustrated not being able to have control of my own life, not being able to make the decision for myself when enough is enough.”
Low was diagnosed with a brain- stem tumour in February 2013. He died last Wednesday at 68.
In the final frame of the video, produced by the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, a federally funded national organization that leads Canada’s cancer control strategy, a message states that Low “did not have the death he had hoped for, but he died in his wife’s arms, and he was not in pain.”
Euthanasia and doctor- hastened dying are taking on new urgency as baby boomers watch their own parents’ end- of- life struggles and consider their own mortality.
Quebec is holding public hearings into Bill 52, legislation that would allow doctors to administer lethal medications to dying patients experiencing unbearable physical or psychological suffering.
In August, the country’s leading doctors’ group, the Canadian Medical Association, voted against wading into the debate about doctor- assisted death, rejecting a motion at its annual general council meeting that would have called on all levels of government to hold public hearings into “medical aid in dying.” Some doctors accused the group of burying their heads in the sand on an issue of profound importance to Canadians.
Low recently retired as chief of microbiology at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital, a role he held since 1985. He was an international authority on public health and infectious diseases.
He was a well- respected physician, mentor and teacher, even in death, a role he took seriously even when he knew he was dying, said Dr. Derryck Smith, past president of the BC Medical Association and a member of the physician’s advisory committee for Dying With Dignity.
“There is mounting public demands that Canadians who wish to avail themselves of this have access to these kinds of end- of- life treatments,” said Smith, clinical professor emeritus in UBC’s department of psychiatry.
The strongest opposition comes from those who are opposed to euthanasia on moral or religious grounds, he said. “That is well and good, and they can do what they wish as they’re approaching death,” Smith said.
“Other people like Dr. Low and myself, and many other Canadians, want to have an option to die surrounded by loved ones, not in pain and not having to go through months of terrible existence, being dependent on others for toileting and feeding.”
“I hope ( the video) moves this debate along,” he said.
The video was produced by the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer.