DECEMBER 3, 1996 - Today Senator Sharon Carstairs (Manitoba), seconded by Conservative Senator and noted heart surgeon, Dr. Wilbert Keon, began second reading of Bill S-13, an Act to amend the Criminal Code (protection of health care providers). Bill S-13 would clarify the Criminal Code to protect health care providers from criminal liability when they: a) withhold or withdraw life-sustaining treatment from patients who request treatment be withdrawn or withheld or b) administer pain control medication, with the intention of alleviating the physical pain of the patient, in dosages which may shorten life.

Senator Carstairs explained the rationale behind the bill. "Bill S-13 is intended to implement recommendations made by the Special Senate Committee on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide in Chapters IV and V of their report Of Life and Death tabled in the Senate on June 6, 1995. The recommendations on pain control and the withholding and withdrawal of treatment were unanimously supported by all Committee members when the report was tabled."

"The Law Reform Commission of Canada recommended these changes in their 1983 report and the Canadian Medical Association has maintained since 1992 that the Criminal Code should be clarified in this area."

"Although the Committee recognized that the withholding and withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment is legal it heard evidence as to the reluctance on the part of some medical practitioners to honour the wishes of patients for fear of being held liable," stated Senator Carstairs.

"A number of witnesses testified before the Committee that doctors are often reluctant to provide sufficient pain control medication to alleviate suffering, if there is a possibility that doing so may shorten the life of the patient, for fear of being held liable. The great tragedy is that patients are not always receiving adequate palliative care and therefore patients suffering from extreme physical pain find that their only alternative is to ask for assisted suicide or euthanasia to end their suffering."

"Bill S-13 sets specific conditions that health care providers must operate under when they administer pain control or when they withhold or withdraw life-sustaining medical treatment. More importantly these conditions protect patients and allow them to have control over their own care."