Under socialized medicine, it doesn't take long to go from suicide as a "choice" to suicide as a pushed "product" to suicide as a murder for bureaucratic "convenience."

Over in Canada, it's gotten to stage two.

Roger Foley is a 42-year-old man with a terminal neural disease that makes it nearly impossible for him to move his arms or legs or even speak.  Under Canada's zero-choice socialized medicine, he's gotten absolutely crappy care from a Canadian home care service, one of whose many violations has put him in the hospital for food poisoning, which is where he's at now.

He states that when he complained about the bad service, he was told to go kill himself – politely, of course, since it's the Canadian way.  He's saying "no," and now there's a lawsuit to force the Canadian socialized medical system to allow him some choice as to how he's going to manage his own care, given the failures of the bureaucrats who chose for him.  Obviously inspired by the Charlie Gard dilemma in the U.K., the bureaucrats are fighting back, determined to ensure he gets the substandard quality of medical care he's already gotten, with the only "out" in suicide.

A great deal for them, you see.

Here is how one expert described the problem, according to CTV a few months ago:

According to Trudo Lemmens, a professor and Scholl Chair in Health Law and Policy at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Law, Foley's allegations – if true – are "very troubling."

"If true, we would have here an instance of a patient receiving an offer for MAID (medical assistance in dying) while the patient precisely complains about receiving substandard levels of care," Lemmens said in an email to CTV News.  "MAID should not be introduced as an option to someone who complains about sub-standard care and clearly not to someone who is suicidal."

And as that lawsuit proceeds, well, guess what!  Turns out Foley had tapes of the state's pressure to take the suicide option, which certainly would be beneficial to the Canadian health care system, given the costs of his care that they don't want to pick up, despite being socialist and all, and their already impressive record of failure.  Imagine being told to return to the care of people who have already demonstrated they don't want you to live.

Here's what National Review, citing CTV, reported:

Foley expresses shock at the figure [for continuing hospitalization] and tells the man that he'd just read an article that quoted the Ontario health minister saying it's "not legal" for hospitals to coerce patients like that.

The man is heard saying that the hospital does not use "this conversation in every situation." ...

Foley then says that he hasn't been informed of a plan for his care and that his rights as a patient are being violated. "You have already violated my preferences ... So what is the plan that you know of?" Foley asks the man.

"Roger, this is not my show," the man replies.  "I told you my piece of this was to talk to you about if you had interest in assisted dying."

It sounds like one of those scenes in C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters.  And that wasn't the only instance of pressuring a patient toward suicide:

Foley tells the man that he's "always thinking I want to end my life" because of the way he's being treated at the hospital and because his requests for self-directed care have been denied.

The man is then heard telling Foley that he can "just apply to get an assisted, if you want to end your life, like you know what I mean?"

When Foley says that he is being forced to end his life, the man protests and says that's not the case.

"Oh, no, no, no," the man is heard saying.  "I'm saying if you feel that way…You know what I mean?  Don't get me wrong.  I'm saying I don't want you to be in here and wanting to take your life."

Notice that Foley's despair had to do with his treatment by the hospital – not his disease – and that rather than remedy that problem or offer suicide-prevention interventions, the fellow very casually suggested euthanasia.

Once euthanasia becomes accepted generally, it could easily become the "remedy" of choice for hospitals and care facilities in dealing with troublesome or expensive patients.  (There is anecdotal evidence of that in Netherlands and Belgium, for example.)

In other words, if you are "wanting to take your life" over the bad quality of your care, well, then, socialism has a solution for you, a final solution, so buck up, buttercup.

What a revolting picture.  And how true it is that just allowing euthanasia in what is supposed to be a "first do no harm" life-giving and life-preserving profession has got to be the most corrosive, corrupting thing, particularly under socialism.  For this poor man, there's no way out of it; he has no choices if that lawsuit does not work.  Apparently, it's too much to ask the bureaucrats to get him some competent health care, because they don't do competent health care; they just do "socialism or death."  That's what is on offer from the Canadian system, which finds itself drawn to pushing for suicide, given the costs of socialized medicine as well as the lack of patient choices or staff accountability.

Sound like something that makes you want to embrace Democratic Socialist "it girl" Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's dreamscape of "Medicare for All" here in the States?

It's what's on offer for us if the left has its way and medical care gets socialized.