In a video that has gone viral on TikTok, an Ontario quadriplegic mother of three says she has just days left before she can access medical assistance in dying (MAID) yet she is unable to access disability support. “I have 12 days left on my medical assistance in dying application here in the province in Ontario.
I’m a quadriplegic single mom raising 2 kids with disabilities,” said Rose Finlay in the video. In interview with Global News, Finlay updated the count, noting she is now down to ‘eight days from today.’ “My life as it is, without support as a quadriplegic is far more deadly than me even exploring the MAID process,” she said.
Finlay suffered a severe spinal cord injury in her teens and has used a wheelchair ever since. She has always been self-sufficient, she said, but finds herself now needing help and falling ill while waiting to access it. “The fact that it takes six to eight months to receive disability support and only 91 days to receive medical assistance in dying based on the fact that I have a permanent disability and decreased quality of life but my quality of life is decreased based on the level of support that I receive,” she said in her TikTok video.
Finlay said she was compelled to apply for MAID, not because she wants to die, but because her community is failing her, and she is afraid she is running out of options. “Not having support for the last year has made it so that I’m getting sick more often and I think it’s just better to have it as an option, have MAID as an option, should I get really, really sick,” she said.