Doctors Pressured This Woman to Die by Euthanasia. One Year Later She is Much Better

Candice Lewis

By Alex Schadenberg, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
National Right to Life

In July Candice Lewis’s mother, Sheila Elson, received a disappointing response from the local Newfoundland hospital after sending an official complaint that she’d been pressured by doctors to approve assisted suicide for her daughter, Candice, who has multiple disabilities.

As reported in a story written by Stephen Roberts, “Elson calls Labrador-Grenfell Health’s response to her letter a joke.”

However a follow up article from Roberts published in the Northern Pen newspaper on August 28 explained that Candice is doing much better after receiving excellent care from a hospital in St John’s Newfoundland.

The article reported:

According to her mom, Sheila Elson, Candice hasn’t been having any seizures, is now able to feed herself, walk with assistance, use her iPad, and is more alert, energetic and communicative since her stay in St. John’s.

“She’s back to about where she was five or six years ago,” says Elson.

After a two-week hospital stay, Candice, along with her mother, walked her sister Glennis down the aisle at her wedding in Dildo in August. 

She’s been able to do all this despite the fact that in 2016, doctors suggested that Candice might be dying.

In September of that year, a doctor at Charles S. Curtis Memorial Hospital in St. Anthony had also suggested to Elson that physician-assisted death could be an option for Candice. What is satisfying her these days is her daughter’s health. 

Since returning to St. Anthony earlier this month, Candice hasn’t required a visit to the hospital.

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