Donna Duncan: A Psychiatric Nurse Who Died Four Hours After Leaving a Psychiatric Unit

Case reference: MAID-BC-2021-DQXK · Abbotsford, British Columbia · Died by MAID · Recorded by the register as a MAID victim

Who she was

Donna Duncan was a psychiatric nurse for her whole career, and a mother of two daughters, Alicia and Christie. Alicia has written a book about her. The Catholic Register reports that Alicia wants the world to know that her mother was, for many years, a woman of “unflinching positivity” and a great deal of fun. Donna lived in Abbotsford, in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley.

Her daughters say they are not opposed to MAID in principle. What they oppose is a system that, in Christie’s words to a disability studies forum, lets “many Canadians” access MAID “out of desperation and not dignity.”

What happened

In February 2020, a minor car accident left Donna with a concussion. Her longtime family doctor diagnosed post-concussion syndrome. Then COVID-19 arrived, and her daughters say she could not get timely counselling or physical rehabilitation. She was referred to a complex chronic disease clinic with a wait list of more than a year. Her sensitivity to light, touch and smell grew worse. She said eating was painful, and she lost a great deal of weight.

On 14 October 2021, Donna asked her doctor of more than 20 years to assess her for MAID. He refused. According to her daughters’ testimony, he did not believe she had followed his medical recommendations and did not think she was on a trajectory toward death. Donna then found a different doctor and a nurse practitioner, who assessed her over the phone. With two approvals, her death was scheduled.

Her daughters obtained a court-ordered warrant under the Mental Health Act, and Donna was held in a psychiatric unit for 72 hours. On 29 October 2021, about four hours after she was released, she died by MAID. She was 61.

Why they were pushed toward MAID

Her daughters describe a woman whose options kept shrinking. The treatment she needed was delayed by the pandemic and by a year-long wait list. Her mental health was deteriorating “quietly but steadily,” Alicia wrote in The Walrus, and that shaped how she understood her symptoms and what treatment she would accept. Her daughters call it situational depression. She had stopped taking the mental health medication she was prescribed.

The one doctor who knew her best refused to approve MAID and said her mental health needed treatment. That refusal is on the record. Her daughters say Donna, as a psychiatric nurse, knew how to convince assessors that she had capacity. Alicia wrote that the choice “rested on a false sense of choice,” a matter of “options shrinking and perspectives tightening until this was what remained.” These are her daughters’ conclusions. No official body has ruled on whether Donna was eligible.

What their family says

On 14 February 2022, Alicia and Christie walked into the Abbotsford Police Department with binders of evidence. Police opened an investigation, which the daughters describe as the first police investigation of a MAID death in Canada. According to The Catholic Register, Fraser Health refused to give police Donna’s assessment records, and after 18 months BC’s Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner upheld that refusal. No charges have been reported.

The sisters want practitioners who did not follow protocols to face criminal charges, and they are campaigning for changes to the law. “Our hope is that we can educate others about the shocking legislation,” they said when they launched a petition.

What this case shows

Donna Duncan spent her life helping people through mental illness. When she needed that help herself, her care was on hold, and MAID was not. Her daughters have spent years trying to find out whether the law was followed, and they have been blocked at every turn. Her case shows how weak oversight is after a MAID death, even when a family has evidence in hand.

Sources

• The Walrus: My Mom’s MAID Death Was the First to Be Investigated by Police
• Canadian Journal of Disability Studies: Testimony of Christie Duncan and Alicia Duncan
• Langley Advance Times: Lower Mainland daughters continue fight for answers in mother’s MAID death
• The Independent: Police probe assisted suicide in Canada as daughters hit out at procedure
• The Catholic Register: Daughter sets mother’s MAiD death straight
• X post by @mario4thenorth: “Two daughters had 48 hours to try to save their mother. She applied & was granted MAID.” (video)