Sophie Kuijper Dickson, LJI Journalist
Mavis Kluke is not afraid of dying.
“The moment that I take my last breath, it means nothing to me, because I’m assuming, at that time, I will be unconscious,” Kluke told THE EQUITY, sitting at a table in the Campbell’s Bay Golden Age Club, in the basement under Bouffe Pontiac.
“It’s the struggle before I get to that point that I would not like, because I’ve seen people who should have had an easier passing from their life.”
Through the many years Kluke has spent working in long term care homes, she’s seen the many shapes the end of a life can take.
“To me, it was very heartbreaking to watch all of these older people who are feeling useless and sick and could not be alleviated of their pain,” Kluke said.
“I always say, if I cannot pick up the spoon with the macaroni in it, one of my favourite foods, and put it in my mouth, then I want that needle.”
By “needle” Kluke is referring to medical assistance in dying (MAID), a process in which a medical practitioner, at a patient’s request, administers medication that brings about that person’s death.
It’s not a choice Kluke takes lightly. She knows that if diagnosed with a terminal illness, she would prefer a medically assisted death to the prolonged suffering the illness might cause.
“I was all for it, not just because I would think it would be the right thing for me if I was ill, but because [it would enable] the families to give their elderly family members some dignity as they passed.”
On Thursday afternoon, Kluke, both the treasurer and secretary of the Golden Age Club, was nearing the end of tidying up the club after hosting the second of two sessions about end-of-life care when she took a break to share all of this with THE EQUITY.
The workshop, which brought a group of about 20 participants together on the afternoons of Nov. 22 and Nov. 28, was organized by the Connexions Resource Centre and facilitated by therapist and grief counselor Manon Lafrenière.
Over the course of the two afternoons, Lafrenière both shared information about the three options for end-of-life care in Canada – palliative care, palliative care with sedation, and medical assistance in dying (MAID) – and invited participants to reflect on and share anxieties and discomforts with what it means to die.
Shelley Heaphy, Connexions’ community engagement and outreach coordinator for the Pontiac, said the organization decided to organize this two-day workshop after hosting two separate information sessions on the same subject at low-income seniors’ residences in the area and seeing a desire for more information about end-of-life-care in the region.
“But we didn’t want it to just be [an opportunity to] get the information and then go home with it,” Heaphy said. “We wanted to be able to answer questions, and just talk to other people who have these feelings, who are going through something similar, and to have the space to do it.”
It’s for this reason Connexions invited Manon Lafrenière to facilitate the workshop.
Lafrenière is one of 34 people in Quebec who have received a special training to help people understand whether or not they’re interested in MAID, and support them through all aspects of the process of applying for it, including everything from filling out the paperwork to having difficult conversations with their families.
In the first session, she invited participants to share what they believed dying to be.
“Misconceptions [about end-of-life care] come from your own personal fears, or your own false beliefs, so that’s why I talk about, ‘What is death?’, and, ‘How do you talk about death with your family members, including kids and grandkids?’”
In the workshop, she also offered critical information about the three options for end-of-life care.
“In all three of them, you have to have your diagnoses of an incurable disease, and it could be physical or mental,” she said.
Palliative care, she explained, involves being administered medication to help relieve pain and suffering near the end of your life, when treatment of an illness will no longer improve its condition.
Palliative sedation, she said, is offered “when it gets to a point where they can’t control or ease the pain.” In this option, a medical professional administers a medication that puts you to sleep. Lafrenière noted this is not a coma. “Medication just puts you to sleep, but does not harm the heart. The heart will stop when it’s ready to stop.”
The final option is MAID, medical assistance in dying, which has been legal in Canada since 2016, and requires a patient meets several criteria to be eligible.
“First thing, when you get your diagnoses and you’re interested in MAID, ask your doctor about MAID right then and there,” Lafrenière said. “The doctor won’t talk about it, they’re not allowed to mention it, but if you ask questions they will answer, and if your doctor is not in agreement with MAID, then find a doctor who is.”
She said therapists such as herself are qualified to help people through this process of learning about and applying MAID, and can be found through the Association québécoise pour le droit de mourir dans la dignité (AQDMD).
She said she often hears from people who feel frustrated that nobody they encounter in the healthcare system talks about end of life care, including MAID.
“It’s not right. People should know about these things so that they are able to make the proper decisions and understand what’s going on,” Lafrenière said.
For her part, Kluke said she was keen to host the workshop at the Campbell’s Bay club because the conversation was one from which she thought many in her extended community could benefit, especially those of an older generation who might be more closed to the idea of MAID because of their religious beliefs.
“I thought it was something other people should be aware of,” she said, noting even she, somebody who’s spent significant time thinking about what it means to die, learned a great deal about the process of applying for MAID and also picked up some useful strategies for talking about death with her family.