Doug Ford Tortures Disabled Voter To Free Up Hospital Bed

An Ontario hospital tortures a man to coerce him into committing suicide, subjecting him to blinding lights, psychological intimidation, sleep deprivation and even starvation, and then repeatedly offering him MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying).

This is the story of Roger Foley, disabled with Spinocerebellar Ataxia who has now spent nearly ten years in hospital. He was living in a London, Ontario apartment with help from homecare workers funded by the provincial government. Those workers were often negligent which led to life threatening problems: botched medications, a kitchen fire, and ultimately food poisoning that landed Roger Foley in the Victoria hospital (London Health Sciences Centre). At first doctors thought it was unsafe to send him home at the mercy of negligent home care, but when Justin Trudeau's assisted suicide law was passed in 2016, hospital staff changed tune, offering Roger assisted suicide as a medical option. It didn't matter that Roger didn't qualify; the law prior to 2021 said MAiD was available only to terminal patients. Roger wasn't terminal. He just needed assistance to live at home. The hospital threatened to bill Roger $1,500 a day (which is illegal in Canada) if he didn't leave or accept assisted suicide.
Roger tried to get approval to choose his own homecare workers, to avoid the incompetent ones provided by the official agencies, but he was consistently denied. He filed a lawsuit to obtain that right, but Doug Ford's Progressive Conservative government fought Roger Foley for six years, spending large sums on government lawyers.
When Roger ultimately lost the case, the hospital ramped up its intimidation. For years staff knew of Roger's sensitivity to bright light. Now they replaced his soft lighting with harsh halogen which they knew would cause Roger intense pain. Then they stopped feeding him, first switching to IV, but reverting to complete starvation when Roger's veins started collapsing due to intervenous feeding. And while Roger was suffering, staff would often wake him up at night to talk about their assisted suicide option. And while Roger's brother from Ottawa pleaded with the hospital to save Roger's life, the local newspaper printed a smear piece on Roger, calling him "an extreme example of a bed blocker" while ignoring all the Guantanamo Bay prison techniques being inflicted on Roger in an effort to convince him to die. Finally, the non-profit Life Care Network started sending care workers into the hospital, to provide the basic services that the Ford government refused to provide. I don't know if Life Care can rewire Roger's lighting, and the hospital still wants Roger dead (as he has been recording staff's transgressions), so the video ends with a call to people to spread the word in the battle of public opinion on this issue.

0:00 Doug Ford
0:29 Meet Roger Foley
1:32 Spinocerebellar ataxia
2:17 Homecare horrors
3:40 Trudeau and Suicide
4:26 Return home?
6:01 Starvation 1.0
6:30 Hospital bill
6:51 Court case
8:24 Torture ramps up
10:24 Blinding light torture
10:50 "Safe" Starvation
11:27 Pro-death propaganda
12:48 Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
13:39 Life Care Network
13:59 Help Roger Foley

Links and Contacts

Amanda Achtman's video "A Passion To Live" gives further background on Roger Foley. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQq5jOMIFLo
You can help Roger's LifeFunder https://www.lifefunder.com/roger/ or his legal fund https://www.givesendgo.com/HelpRogerFoley
Support Roger by contacting politicians. Doug Ford e-mail [email protected] 416-325-1941 Health Minister Sylvia Jones [email protected] 519-941-7751 800-265-1603 fax 519-941-3246 Opposition Leader Marit Stiles email [email protected] 416-326-7202
Narrated by Blerfnerg Ghobloudian. You can support the channel at www.buymeacoffee.com/UncleBlerf.