Case reference: MAID-ON-2022-5RW4 · Toronto, Ontario · Applied for MAID; outcome not publicly known · Recorded by the register as a MAID victim
Who she is
Tracey Thompson is a former chef in Toronto who loves cooking. She loves small things: “Birds chirping, small things that make up a day are still pleasant to me, they’re still enjoyable. I still enjoy my friends,” she told CTV News in 2022.
In March 2020, she says, a man grabbed her, shook her, coughed in her face and laughed, “You’re sick now.” She caught COVID-19 and never recovered.
What happened
Long COVID left Thompson unable to work. She has since been diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis (chronic fatigue syndrome), postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome and mast cell activation syndrome. By late 2023, she said, she was in bed 22 hours a day, and brain fog had made music, reading and films hard to follow. The woman who loved to cook could eat little more than unseasoned chicken and vegetables. She had trouble being taken seriously by doctors early on: “At that time, they didn’t even know what long Covid was, no one did.”
Photo: CTV News (source)
In July 2022 she told CTV News she had started the process of applying for MAID. The National Post reported in December 2023 that she had applied, and that she said she was legally barred from sharing the status of her application. A GoFundMe she started in 2021 had raised $65,683 of its $100,000 goal. In June 2023 she posted that she had signed up for clinical trials.
Why they were pushed toward MAID
In her own words, money, not a wish to die, pushed her toward MAID. She told CTV she decided to apply because she is running out of money. Her savings have been drained by food, housing and medical costs.
She is also profoundly alone. She says she has no family, has lost her friends since getting sick, and had to give her dog up for adoption because she could no longer care for her. “It is painfully boring. It’s profoundly isolating,” she said. These are her own statements.
In their own words
“I’m very happy to be alive. I still enjoy life,” Thompson told CTV News.
“My quality of life with this illness is almost nonexistent, it’s not a good life,” she said later. “I don’t do anything.” And about her trials: “I have signed up for trials & am hoping for, not miraculous, but at least useful results.”
What this case shows
Tracey Thompson is a woman who still delights in birdsong, and she applied for MAID because she could no longer afford to live sick. Her case shows how Canada’s support for people with long COVID and other chronic illnesses can leave them choosing between poverty and death.
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