A woman undergoing life-saving cancer surgery in Canada was offered assisted suicide by doctors as she was about to enter the operating room.

A bill to allow euthanasia and assisted suicide is being debated in the House of Commons today and an Oireachtas report on the same topic is being debated in the Dail tomorrow.

The case comes to light as the number of people opting to end their lives under Canada’s medical assistance in dying (MAID) program has increased from 2,838 in its first full year in 2017 to 13,241 in 2022.

Speaking anonymously, the 51-year-old cancer patient said she was set to undergo a mastectomy operation for breast cancer when a physician asked her if she knew about medical assistance in dying (MAID).

“I was sitting in two surgical gowns, one frontways and one backwards, with a cap on my hair and booties on my feet. I was shivering and in a hard plastic chair and all alone in a hallway”.

“The [doctor] sat down and went through all the scary things with me. Then he asked ‘Did you know about medical assistance in dying?’

“All I could say was, ‘I don’t want to talk about that’.