Case reference: MAID-ON-2019-UJCW · Brampton, Ontario · MAID raised by others; not requested · Recorded by the register as a MAID victim
Who she is
Rita Rose Busby (née Travis) was born 26 January 1925. She lived in Brampton, Ontario, attended Mass daily at St. Mary’s, bowled, played cards and bingo, and was a devoted Blue Jays fan. She was mother to Debbie Fisher, John Busby and Kim Dunlop, and “Nanna Rita” to a large family. Her obituary says she passed peacefully at home under her family’s care on 12 April 2019.
What happened
In 2019, after she accidentally overdosed on a prescribed drug, Rita was admitted to hospital. Drowsy and not thinking straight, she made an offhand remark to a nurse that she “wanted to die.” Her daughter Debbie Fisher, 71, of Ontario, told the New York Post that a Canadian government psychologist then pulled her aside to say they were preparing to euthanise her mother.
Fisher held power of attorney. She stopped the process. “I was terrified. I couldn’t believe what was happening. They talked to me like I was putting a dog down,” she said. “My mom wanted to die, she didn’t want to be killed! If I hadn’t been there, and she hadn’t signed over Power of Attorney, who knows what would have happened.”
Rita lived about six more months. She went bowling, to baseball games and a family reunion, and mended strained relationships before dying naturally at home.
Why they were pushed toward MAID
A single distressed remark from a drowsy 93-year-old Catholic was treated as a path to euthanasia. Fisher later wrote to MPs supporting Bill C-218 that during a hospital stay after her mother took too much medication, a doctor informed her that her mother wished to die, and that a prior legal document preventing assisted suicide or euthanasia, plus Fisher’s intervention, stopped it. “By the grace of God she recovered and on her 94th birthday she went bowling with her grandchildren and great grandchildren. She passed 3 months later of natural causes.”
In their own words
“People don’t understand there’s a lot of things that go on behind the scenes [in hospitals] when there’s no one there to protect them,” Fisher told the Post. In her open letter on Bill C-218 she wrote: “I told the doctor that my mother, who was a woman of faith, may have wanted to die but she didn’t want to be killed.”
What this case shows
Rita Busby nearly died by MAID over one sentence spoken while she was not thinking straight. She went home, bowled, watched the Jays and died naturally in her family’s arms. Her case shows how quickly hospital staff can move from a distressed remark to preparing death — and why a power of attorney who will say no still matters.
Leave a Reply