Healthcare or lack thereof: Lessons from North America

Glancing through the editorial page of Calgary Herald I am face to face with the stark realities of ageing in Canada. Not one but two stories bring out the challenges, that ‘healthcare’ segment ought to address in India and China, sooner than later.

“Standoff with dementia – Montreal case foreshadows baby-boomer crisis”: is about Havis, 71, the owner of estimated 180 guns, fired a handgun at police during the tense, 20 hour confrontation. It started with Havis mistaking workers from a utility company for intruders. There’s just one catch, reports the paper, Havis has dementia. It goes on to highlight that there is grave cause for alarm when one factors in the prediction that, with baby boomers’ demographic bulge moving through its senior years like a gopher through a snake’s stomach, cases of dementia are expected to double by 2030 and triple by 2050.

The Alzheimer Society of Canada has been quoted saying that by 2038, there will be 238,000 new cases of Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia diagnosed in the country, a rate of one every two minutes.

“Rx: No to assisted suicide”

This is a stark reminder of the fact that doctors are the forgotton ones in the heated debate over assisted suicide. A new Canadian Medical Association survey shows only about one-quarter of doctors would be willing to participate in an assisted suicide. The edit points out doctors do not want to help kill people.

They likely feel it violates the Hippocratic Oath; they may also personally not want to be responsible for killing anyone. Perhaps they simply cannot stomach the idea of going through the procedure that would lead to someone’s death. Regardless, it says, the results of this survey need to loom large in any parliamentary debate about whether assisted suicide should become legal in Canada.

A likely ‘popular’ debating theme-to-be in times to come, closer home?