Amir Farsoud: “I Couldn’t Afford to Live, So I Asked Doctors to Help Me Die”

Case reference: MAID-ON-2022-HX9H · St. Catharines, Ontario · Withdrew MAID request · Recorded by the register as a MAID victim

Who he is

Amir Farsoud is 55 and lives in St. Catharines, Ontario. He wrote his own story for The Independent, and he opens it plainly: “My name is Amir. I am 55 years old and live in Canada.”

He lives with constant pain from severe spinal stenosis, degenerative disc disease and osteoarthritis, along with PTSD, panic anxiety disorder, depression, severe asthma and early COPD. He cannot work, and for about a decade his main income has been the Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP).

What happened

In July 2022, his landlord told him the rooming house where he lived was being sold. After a month of searching, it was clear that ODSP, which he says had been stuck at $1,169 a month for more than five years, would not cover rent anywhere. “Even mould-infested rooms in dank basements had gone up in price to over C$800 per month.”

Believing he would not survive homelessness for long, he made a written request for MAID. His doctor tried to talk him out of it, then reluctantly signed. As a Track 2 applicant, he had to wait 90 days for the second approval. “I was basically marking time, and preparing myself for dying,” he wrote.

Then CityNews told his story in October 2022. A stranger started a fundraiser that raised more than $60,000 in four or five days. It let him pay off debts, move, and top up his income to about $2,000 a month. He withdrew his MAID request.

Why they were pushed toward MAID

In his own words, it was poverty and the loss of his home that pushed him toward MAID. “I knew that in my current physical and mental condition, I would not be able to survive my impending homelessness for very long. So I turned to what I felt was the only viable option left to me, which was trying to access MAID.”

The speed of the turnaround supports his account. When money and housing were secured, he no longer wanted to die. The pressure was financial and social, not medical.

In their own words

“While that makes for a nice ‘feel good’ story,” Farsoud wrote, “I essentially ended up winning a lottery that will allow me to continue living with a roof over my head and food security, there are over a million people in Canada who are now, at least financially, where I was a few months ago. And they won’t win that lottery.”

“The real issue isn’t whether or not someone like me should be able to access MAID. It’s whether or not we, as a society, wish to continue making people’s lives miserable and hopeless enough that suicide – assisted or otherwise – becomes a viable option.”

What this case shows

Amir Farsoud is alive because strangers paid his rent. Canada’s disability support did not. His story shows how directly poverty can drive a MAID request, and his warning points past the MAID debate to the real question: whether Canada will give disabled people enough to live on.

Sources

• The Independent: I couldn’t afford to live, so I asked doctors to help me die – and they said yes (Amir Farsoud)
• CityNews Toronto: Ethics of medically-assisted death questioned as some turn to it as an alternative to poverty
• CityNews Toronto: Ontario man not considering medically-assisted death anymore after outpouring of support