Open Access“Dying with a Smile, Just Knowing that Somebody’s Listened to Me”: End-Of-Life Care and Medical Assistance in Dying in Canadian Prisons
Author(s) -
Jessica Shaw,
Peter Driftmier
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
omega
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.5
H-Index - 40
eISSN - 1541-3764
pISSN - 0030-2228
DOI - 10.1177/00302228211052341
Subject(s) - voluntariness , prison , autonomy , end of life care , palliative care , assisted suicide , psychology , nursing , medicine , criminology , political science , psychiatry , law
Medical assistance in dying (MAiD) has been legal in Canada since 2016 and some incarcerated patients who are at the end of their lives are eligible for the procedure. Interviews with nine incarcerated men at a federal penitentiary in Canada provide insight into some of the ways that people who are navigating aging and end-of-life in prison think about MAiD. Interview themes are organized around: experience with death and dying; possibilities and barriers related to applications for release from prison at end-of-life; experiences of peer-caregiving in a prison palliative care program; support for MAiD and the expansion of eligibility criteria; what a good death looks like. Themes are contextualized alongside federal guidelines related to end-of-life care (EOLC) and MAiD for prisoners, highlighting that sound policy requires both generalizable principles and attention to nuance. MAiD rests on patient voluntariness, and thus autonomy over EOLC decisions is paramount for prisoners.