Hospice is when end of life takes place in a hospital like setting - it's a staffed nursing facility. When they come to your home, it's called palliative care. It's good there are so many options for how to live your final months, weeks and days, but we rarely give much thought to how to die.
Bill, I think you're right about it opening the door for other things, and this has been the case in one country in particular, where even able-bodied people with mental illness can request physician-assisted suicide. I think there needs to be very strict policies in place about who qualifies, and at what stage of their illness. Even that may not be enough though, so it will become necessary to maybe shift focus to the physician's experience. Evidently, in Netherlands, physicians who assist their patients to die will often require time off from work, and receive counselling as well. I think it will be very important to be sensitive to physician needs, and physicians should have the choice to opt-out if it goes against their own personal morality or faith.
One thing to remember, too, is that if Netherlands is indicative of what might happen here, there is hope. There, the service must be requested by the patient on more than one occasion, spaced a certain amount of time apart, they must receive counselling to make sure they are of sound mind, etc. Iow, there is a long process that must happen and involve numerous people, from family to professionals. All must be in agreement. So very few people request it, and very few of those actually carry it out. I do not recall the statistics, but the percentages are marginal. Hopefully that will be the case in Canada, too, but at least the option will be there for those whose suffering is unbearable.
