Now on bbc news, the right to die. Normally my day begins by changing my t shirt. Its soaking wet from the sweat from the nightmares. I wake up most mornings saying, not another day. As a person suffering from Mental Illness, i and other people are invisible. No one recognises us. They are embarrassed by Mental Illness, and thats. The stigma is vast. If medical assistance in dying had been available, back during those times where things were really, really low, like, there was no hope, i wouldnt be here today. I would have died thinking i had a depression that would never go away. If canada doesnt delay maid for Mental Illness, i would feel like. That were disposable. Ill speak on behalf of those who dont have a voice, those who are frightened to have a voice. I hope im speaking for them. Its the one thing i believe i have to do, to advocate for the mentally ill and advocate for a proper way for assisted death for the mentally ill. Around the world, there are conversations on medically assisted dying. Germany, france and the uk are all currently debating whether it should be permitted and for whom. Medical assistance in dying in canada, also known as maid, is available for adults with terminal illness or serious and chronic medical conditions but is not yet available for people who suffer solely from a Mental Illness. Its a controversial idea the country is currently debating. My name isjohn scully. Im 82 years old. Ive been diagnosed with severe depression, incurable ptsd and incurable anxiety disorder. I sufferfrom somatic pain, chronic pain. That means pain that they cant diagnose and assume its psychiatric. Ive been in this condition for roughly a0 years. All of my illnesses, really, go back to childhood, when i was growing up in wellington, new zealand, where i suffered from chronic, desperately bad asthma. That was not good for my health, or my Mental Health, and i think thats the start of my mental decline right there. Because of my asthma, i missed most of the school year. I was not going to make anything of myself. And with the urging of my parents, they put me into a Trade Washing Floors at a new local newspaper. Thats how i got into journalism. John eventually started a career in broadcastjournalism, working for various news outlets, including cbc and the bbc. Here is a variety of press passes and accreditations from. Thats india, i think. This is a press pass from russia. This is us getting set up in uganda, in kampala. They kept sending me to cover the troubles in northern ireland. With bombs and guns and. Things going off in the night. It was hairy. But, you know, you did it, because you were a journalist. They also sent me to do a documentary on the indo pak border. We were covering the refugees pouring across the border. But the refugees were riddled with cholera and disease, and they were dropping, literally, in front of us. That was really my first horrific warzone, and, i guess, the real start of ptsd. Fear is good. Its healthy. If youre not frightened, you get killed. But i was thinking that i have to control the fear, be calm, and go ahead and get the story. And id go back to the hotel, if there was one around, and get hammered at night. That was my antidepressant. I started bouncing around from war zone to war zone, and i steeled myself all the time. I paid a huge price for it. Dying with dignity is an Advocacy Group for people considering medically assisted dying. As controversy around the potential expansion builds, theyve received an increase in calls from people with Mental Health problems. The team are doing additional training to better protect callers. Suicide intervention is really a conversation, right, between two people. Therell be a moment where this person might recognise| that they have some reasons to stay alive we have some really difficult calls, people who cannot access maid, who are not eligible. Or maybe the law doesnt allow them to access maid at this time. Some of the calls are distressing. And, you know, sometimes a Wellness Check has to be done. Assisted dying for those with a Mental Disorder as their sole underlying condition is not currently legal. We expect that to change in 202a. What exactly that will look like, were still not 100 sure. There will be a longer assessment period. Right now, for those people who are in what we call track two, or whose deaths are not foreseeable, its a minimum of 90 days. We anticipate it will be at least the same for those with a Mental Disorder. There will be some consultation with an individual with expertise. So, whether its a psychiatrist, or a counsellor, or therapist, that type of consultation will be required. Clinicians are really going to be looking at the history, how long people have been working on their Mental Health, what treatments have they tried . You know, what has their life been like . Theyll be ensuring people arent currently suicidal. Maid is not for someone whos suicidal. Its a well thought out decision from someone who is, you know, in the right frame of mind. What i think is important is that people have the right to choose and the suffering that we hear about and that people experience as a result of a Mental Illness can bejust as hard, just as difficult as from a physical illness. You coming . When you talk to someone likejohn and you hear about his decades of trauma, its really difficult for me to understand how anyone couldnt agree that this is a person who needs the opportunity to be assessed. So, we start with calcium. Youve only got one of those left. Uh . Three left . One. One . one. In our everyday, ongoing lives, i i dont try and help him too much, because if i do, helljust sit in the chair all day. So, if he wants to make tea, i say, yes, thatd be very nice to make tea. So, he has to get up and make the tea, and he has to. And i have to remind him to take the walker because hell get halfway across the room and start falling over. I so, i have to make sure that either i can get the walker to him or i can catch him. I met my wife, toni, in a coffee shop in wellington, new zealand. She saw me in the coffee shop reading a donald duck comic and she kind of found. This was kind of weird, some clown reading a donald duck coitiic, a grown man. Well, a 20 year old. We got to love each other. She is a treasure and a gem. I live for her. When i started to get sick and immobile, theres nothing she wouldnt do, to this very day. My body collapsed. My mind collapsed terribly. I had to get rid of the depression. I had attempted suicide twice. The ptsd plays into it all the time, as does anxiety. They all roll into one. The last time it happened, i i was living up north and john was renting a place in the city because he was working in the city at the time, and i got a call from him saying hed taken a whole bunch of pills. Its a two and a half hour, three hour drive, so. I left and drovel as fast as i could. I called my daughter, who had just got married recently, and she and her new husband got him some help and checked him out, into the hospital. And, yeah, it was, erm, not an easy time. Ive been through every single treatment its possible to get. I take 30 pills a day. 30. Thats to deal with other physical and mental problems. Ive had 19 shock therapies, eight transcranial magnetic stimulation. Thats where they put a band around your head of electrodes. It did no good, but god knows what harm it did. All of that has contributed to my plight now, where im looking for maid. I think toni finds it tough. I think shell tell you that she is. Behind me, whatever i decide. My kids are like that too. Whatever i decide. About living and dying, they are with me. As brutal as it may be, or as grief stricken as it may be, they are with me. Here it is. This is an application for maid. Patient request for medical assistance in dying. It excludes Mental Illness because i got this before. Well, the law hasnt been passed, so theres no law in place for the paperwork to be in place. I dont think ive really looked through it before or read it. An eye opener. Yeah. What surprises you . Just. The way its worded. I hadnt actually thought about it. Yeah. And had it been available, maybe you would have already. Yeah. But im thankful for the delay in. A way cos youre still here with me. Thats a blessing or a curse. Im not sure which. Well, you have the ability to make it a blessing. Uhhuh. John chuckles so, i think it should be available to you, if you want it. And if you want it, thats a personal choice, within the law, which is perfectly good, you can have your family around you, they can support you. It can be a pleasant way to go. Not just. Maybe somebody i will catch me before. The pills take over. Suicide is not something i can handle. I refuse to let you think that youre going to do that. Sorry. Yeah, but theres the possibility. I mean, do you talk about maid or suicide . Suicide. 0h if you decide to do maid, thats one thing. Suicide is something totally different, and youre not allowed to do it. Why not . Because ill punch you in the nose. Now, that would hurt, but id be dead. Erm. In 2015, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that banning assisted dying deprived canadians of their dignity and autonomy, but the legislation to include maid solely for Mental Health keeps getting delayed. For some, though, these deferrals have been crucial in finding the right treatment. My struggle with Mental Illness started when i was 23. Like, my father died of cancer, and it took, like. It was three weeks and he was dead, so that was a shock. The first time i really experienced that kind of pain. After that, i kind of went downhill, lets say, for the next couple of years. I was at the university doing my phd, but it wasnt going well. I couldnt focus. So, between 25 and a5, approximately, i had several bouts of depression. Like, it was recurring. So, every time they gave me antidepressants and then id go crashing again, and with higher and higher doses, it was getting more difficult to get better. I had, you know, several moments where i was suicidal. Georgia eventually received the correct diagnosis for bipolar disorder, rather than depression, in 2021. The change of medication changed her life and her outlook on Mental Health. Life for me has changed since i got my diagnosis. Well, you know, iam married. I also paint, have a house. You know, life is pretty. Good. I have my friends. If maid had been available, back during those times where things were really, really low and i was suffering a lot and crying and just, you know, like, there was no hope, if i asked for it, i would have gotten it, and i wouldnt be here today and i wouldnt have been. I wouldnt have known my real diagnosis, the right diagnosis, in 2021. I would have died thinking i had a depression that would never go away. On the individual level, like, im not diminishing at all people suffering because i know what it is, but if canada doesnt delay maid for Mental Illness, i would feel, like, angry, but also dismissed. Theres. Too many clashes and too much controversy for us to say, lets go. In 2022, 4. 1 of all deaths in canada were medically assisted. If passed, they would be one of a handful of countries allowing Euthanasia Due to psychiatric suffering. It is currently allowed in countries like belgium and the netherlands under stringent conditions. The medical community in canada remains divided on the new potential law. My name is sonu gaind. Im a professor of psychiatry at the university of toronto. Im a former president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association as well. If maid for sole Mental Illness had been started to be provided, i fundamentally feel it would have been irresponsible. All the evidence shows us that when we attempt to make predictions of irremediability in Mental Illness, we are wrong more than half the time. Its literally better to flip a coin to guess whether somebody will or will not get better from a sole Mental Illness. We dont even understand the underlying biology of the vast majority of Mental Illnesses. And the second problem with Mental Illness is evidence shows us we do not know how to separate or distinguish suicidality thats actually a symptom of the Mental Illness itself from other motivations leading to psychiatric maid or psychiatric euthanasia requests. The evidence in europe shows us that theres actually overlapping characteristics between people who are suicidal from Mental Illness symptoms, who can benefit from suicide prevention, and people who seek and get psychiatric euthanasia there. And so its not only that we dont know how to separate those groups. We dont even know if they are separate groups. And that combined leads to the third problem, which is that then, in particular, you risk and jeopardise the most marginalised people in society. And unfortunately we know that with Mental Illness there are also concurrent higher rates of social suffering, like poverty, loneliness, housing, insecurity, isolation, all sorts of social suffering. And so its a terrible perfect storm where youre taking somebody in a period of genuine suffering who, from their illness itself, they have a hard time separating out what any possible hopeful future might or might not be. And in the context of issues like maid, the problem becomes that we need to predict who will not get better. And i can think in my own practice of a number of people who struggled for a long time, we tried various things, they didnt get better for a long time, and then. They did. Dr Chantal Perrot has been a Maid Assessor and provider since 2016, when it first became available. She supports the expansion and has worked in Mental Health for a0 years. I dont think of it as killing someone. When i provide maid, i do end a life, but its at the persons request and its a clear and consistent request on their part for their suffering to end. And i consider it a tremendous honour and a privilege to meet people at that stage of their lives and to be able to help them. I think people have a very rudimentary idea of what Mental Health is in canada. Theres a very strong mentality of, oh, if theyjust worked harder, if they pull themselves up by their bootstraps, they would be able to get on with it, and its just not like. Just not like that. I think a lot of people dont understand that aspect of it, just how debilitating it can be to live with a Mental Disorder. Can people with these disorders live and enjoy life . Absolutely. But some cannot. And again, its those few people who cannot, who are suffering intolerably, who deserve the right to be assessed for maid. There have been people that have been waiting and hoping since 2016 to be able to apply. But again, of those many that might apply initially, very few would be found eligible. Oftentimes, people are concerned that the 17 year old boy whose girlfriend has dumped him and hes now very depressed and says he wants to die, that he would be found eligible for maid. He wouldnt because hes 17. But even if he turned 18, he would not be found eligible for maid. That would be an acute situational crisis, which would likely render him incapable of making that kind of decision. I think its very possible to make a distinction between somebody who has Suicidal Ideation and someone who has a rational request to die with medical assistance, and somebody whos, again, in the throes of an acute episode of Mental Disorder would not be found eligible. At a particular moment in time, it may be difficult to make that discernment, but you speak to people over a period of time. Somebody applying under the Mental Disorders would not be seen in one interview and then receive maid. So, we would want to see somebody who was rational, had mental capacity, talking about wanting maid, and that they were clear and consistent in that request, and not wavering. And so i think thats a very different story than somebody who has Suicidal Ideation. As the debate continues, it remains unclear if the law will be passed by the proposed deadline in 202a. Polling suggests that only 42 of canadians support expanding eligibility solely for Mental Illness. John has been asked to record his testimony to present to canadian mps as they deliberate. Hi. Can you see me . I can see you just fine. Im ready to record when you are. My name isjohn scully. Im 82. Im severely mentally ill. Ive been a patient in seven psych wards. Ive seen dozens of psychiatrists. Ive tried every drug known. I dont feel a burden to speak out about maid. I have a moral obligation to speak out for the rights of the mentally ill and for the rights of people who want maid for the mentally ill. I think its myjob. Its all ive got left. But i do it absolutely willingly and i do it because i believe in what im doing. I want maid for the mentally ill to be passed without any further cruel delays. It must be passed on schedule, devoid of the obfuscation that has prevented it from passing in the last three years. Automated voice recording stopped. Thats that. Er, i dont know how it went, you know. I felt i stumbled a couple of times. Erm, yeah. I think now is the time to make a cup of tea. Thank you. So, in Parliament Today was tabled the joint Committee Report looking at medical assistance and dying where Mental Illness is the sole underlying condition. We agree with the conclusion that the committee has come to that the system is at this time is not ready, and more time is required. On the question of whether or not theres equivalency between mental and physical suffering, i dont think theres any question that there is equivalency. The question here is one of readiness. After repeated delays, the government announces the law will be postponed a further three years to march 2027. I was relieved. I was actually glad and appreciative that the government took a sober look and stepped back from the brink. I do recognise that there are people who are going to be disappointed. L i feel its very unfortunate that the narrative theyve pushed is that, the only way we can. Help you is by providing maid, because then when that gets taken away, that representsl yet another disappointment. People are genuinely suffering. But maybe the questions we honestly, as a society, need to ask first is, how do we actually help people live better . Since last filming withjohn, he has been taken into hospital after a fall at home. Hes still processing the news. I was sitting at home watching tv and i saw that the government has now booted it to whatever year, and i was shocked. I wasjust. I felt beaten. I felt that i had lost. We are now not treated as equals. Were not treated as a person with a physical illness. We now have to fight this battle all over again because of that government decision. Thats a stamp saying, you mentally ill, you dont matter. And thats been the attitude towards the mentally ill for generations. It makes it harder for people to live with Mental Illness and be open about it. Its a secret illness now and its pushed further under the carpet. Hello there. Were seeing some changes to the weather this weekend. Part two of the weekend promises to be quite wet across some eastern areas, another chilly but bright day further west that you are, but it marks a changed all weather because as we move into the new week, well start to draw up some warmer air from the near continent. Many areas will actually turn a lot warmer than what weve had over the past week. This area of low pressure will continue to bring some rain to central, southern and eastern parts of england through the night. So early sunday, this is the position the rain will be in. Less cold for england and wales, 5 8 degrees, but another Cold Night For Scotland and northern ireland, a touch of frost. But its here youll have the best of the sunshine from the word go for sunday morning. Further east, it will be a cloudy, wet picture, with that rain slowly pulling away from eastern england, becoming confined to north east scotland, the Northern Isles. Elsewhere, plenty of sunshine around, a few scattered showers developing into the afternoon, and a windy day to come, particularly close to the north sea, close near to that area of rain. Temperature wise, the low teens for many, but distinctly chilly again across this north east corner. That rain continues to clear northwards into the Northern Isles during sunday night. It turns a lot drier for many with clear spells. Well start to see thicker cloud and some showery bursts of rain pushing into Western Areas, though, by the end of the night, though many areas will stay dry. Temperature wise, well, actually milder for many, particularly scotland and northern ireland, than weve had of late. Still a few chilly spots there for north east scotland. This is the picture for monday, certainly the pressure picture. Weve got low pressure out toward the west. This will be bringing south or South Westerly Winds across the country. And actually for large parts of england and wales, particularly towards the south and east, its going to stay dry all day with some good spells of sunshine. But rain will be splashing into Western Areas and moving across the irish sea as we move through the course today. Some of this will be quite heavy. Weve got the low teens celsius in the north and the west. Could be up to 16 or 17 celsius In The South East with that sunshine and the warm wind coming off the continent. For the rest of the week, we hold on to lower pressure towards the west of the uk. That will continue to bring our air source from the south east or the east at times, and there will be Weather Fronts close by. So its an unsettled theme, i think, but its going to feel warmer throughout this week than what weve had over the past week. It could be up to 20 degrees in the warmest spots across the south east. But with low pressure nearby, it will tend to remain on the unsettled side. Take care. Live from washington. This is bbc news israels Foreign Minister says his countrys military could suspend its planned incursion into rafah if there is a deal where hamas releases its remaining hostages. The United Nations warns of an attack in sudans north darfur state , saying the consequences could would be devastating. And days afterfive migrants died trying to cross the english channel, the bbc hears from one man who decided against boarding the vessel. Hello, im helena humphrey, its good to have you with us. We start in the middle east where israels Foreign Minister has said a planned Military Incursion into Rafah In Gaza could be suspended. Thats if a deal is made to free the remaining hostages held by hamas. Ceasefire negotiations between israel and hamas have been stalled for weeks. But local media are reporting notable progress this weekend. Us Secretary Of StateAntony Blinken is expected to visit saudi arabia in the coming days