Pressure grew on Health Minister Patty Hajdu, as palliative Canadians anticipated the minister’s response to their Section 56 applications regarding access to psilocybin mushrooms on compassionate grounds.
TheraPsil, a Canadian BC-based non-profit coalition of healthcare professionals, expanded their program and invited patients to come forward to support their section 56 applications.
TheraPsil has supported and is aware of at least four dying Canadians who have applied directly to Health Minister Hajdu for access to psilocybin-assisted therapy to treat their end-of-life distress.
Two of the four palliative patients have come forward to share their stories and to encourage others in their position to explore their options.
One patient – Saskatchewan resident Thomas Hartle – was diagnosed with colon cancer in April, 2016. He’d exhausted all other treatment options.
“As you can imagine, this obviously causes quite a bit of anxiety,” Hartle said.
“There isn’t anything any doctor can tell me or any pill they can give me that can say that everything will definitely be okay after you die. But the research shows that psilocybin may be able to help me with the end of life distress. So, I have submitted a section 56 application to Patty Hajdu asking for an exemption to use psilocybin with my doctor and therapist. I have asked her to respond to my application by June 25, so I may live out my remaining time in peace.”
One of the applicants’ doctors, Crosbie Watler MD said “My patient has been waiting an excess of eight weeks for a response from the Honourable Health Minister. This is unacceptable. No dying Canadian should have to reach to the highest levels of government to ask for legal access to a mushroom, just to be ignored. Patients have the right to die in Canada, so surely we must be able to give them the right to try a plant-based medicine that has been proven with clinical research to be a safe and effective.”
For information about TheraPsil's inclusion criteria and program, visit www.therapsil.ca.
