The brother of a disabled Canadian man is pleading with his hospital – which pushed euthanasia and cut off food and water nearly one month ago – to stop him from “dying in front of you.”

Instead of helping, The Dallas Express has learned, hospital officials told his brother to stop contacting them.

“Your patient is dying in front of you and you are silent… you have all the power, my brother does not,” wrote Robert Foley, the brother of disabled patient Roger Foley, in an email to staff at the London Health Sciences Centre obtained by The Dallas Express. “You’re a doctor, you are supposed to save lives not stand by to watch death.”

Roger Foley has spinocerebellar ataxia – a disability that makes movement extremely difficult – so he requires a medical lift for daily tasks like eating, drinking, and medication. He has been in the hospital at LHSC for close to nine years, fighting to obtain self-directed funding for in-home care. 

The hospital repeatedly pushed euthanasia on Foley and recently began bringing up suicide almost constantly, as The Dallas Express reported at the time. In early May, officials also cut off his access to food and water since he would not agree to bright lights, which he says aggravate his neurological symptoms. Since then, he has been surviving on an IV.

Begging For Care

Now, Roger’s brother Robert is pleading with the hospital to save his life. Robert wrote hospital officials in a June 4 email, obtained by The Dallas Express, warning that “he is going to die.” An official responded the next day, calling his concerns “inappropriate and inflammatory.”

“My brother is going to die and I need you to stop that from happening, you’re a doctor that is what you are supposed to do,” Robert wrote June 4. “It has been almost a month that he has not eaten, his health is weak, he needs you to save his life, I need you to save his life, please, please, don’t let my brother die because of hospital admissions that care more about margins then [sic] people’s lives.”

Robert asked staff to restore Roger’s previous dimmer lighting—which had been in place for multiple years—so he could eat, drink, and take medication. 

“Please why can’t you tell the hospital to bring back the lighting like it was before for years until they can update the lights, instead of doing what they are doing now that is killing my brother,” Robert wrote in the email. 

A hospital official replied to Robert’s email on June 5 and said, “We appreciate your concern for your brother’s well-being,” but told him to stop contacting the hospital.

“Your repeated emails to the hospital, its employees, and physicians, are inappropriate and inflammatory. They will not receive a response,” the official wrote. “The hospital and care team remain dedicated to addressing patient medical needs and will communicate through appropriate channels in that regard.”

The official said, “Those involved in [Roger’s] care will communicate with him directly as necessary,” and told Robert he could only contact the hospital’s patient relations division. “Otherwise, you should not be communicating with LHSC personnel via email.”

Hospital staff offered to give Foley care with bright lights, which he says he cannot tolerate. When he objected to the lights but asked for care, they insisted he was refusing care and withheld treatment, according to recordings previously obtained by The Dallas Express.

Foley’s brother Robert told The Dallas Express he thinks the hospital is pushing bright lights to make his situation untenable. 

“They always walk into the room and they’re just like, ‘Hey Roger, do you want to do your routine?’ He’s like, ‘Well, are you going to meet the lighting conditions as per my care plan?’ It’s silence,” according to Robert. “They just keep on saying, ‘Well, is that a no?’ Because they want him to say that he’s saying no. He doesn’t have the power, they do.”

Roger provided a video to The Dallas Express from his hospital room showing an alternate, dimmer lighting setup he says would be tolerable. However, the hospital refuses to consider it. 

The Dallas Express reached out to LHSC for comment but did not hear back in time for publication.

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Roger also told The Dallas Express his IV recently went “interstitial,” which is when an IV leaks beyond a vein and seeps into the surrounding tissue. He sent a picture of his arm, which appears red and swollen.

Robert expressed concern about this in the email to hospital staff, and said he worries they will let Roger “die.” Roger Foley previously told The Dallas Express he fears for his life. 

Efficiency Over Compassion

Hospital staff pressured Foley to accept euthanasia multiple times from 2016 to 2018, and against his wishes, they recently began bringing up suicide. 

Robert said his brother’s situation resembles that of other patients pressured to accept euthanasia – also termed “Medical Assistance in Dying,” or MAID.

“You’ll hear similar lines like that every time,” Robert said. “They create a situation that makes these people feel like there’s no hope, that they can’t get the care. But then they’re told that they’re the problem, and then they make them feel like they’re the problem. So then they take MAID.”

Canadian hospitals use MAID as a “cost-saving measure,” which leads them to treat patients like “paperwork.” A recent article in the Canadian outlet The London Free Press labeled Roger a “bed blocker.”

“Everybody’s like, ‘This will free the bed,’” Robert said. “He’s not blocking the bed, they’re blocking his care.”

Robert said his brother Roger has been “stuck” for years in the country’s stretched-thin medical system.

“Universal health care can be a very great thing for a population, but the problem is when governments are not responsible with finances, and then the system gets stretched, the employees get stretched,” Robert said. “A lot of the empathy and humanity that used to be in our health system, that I remember when I was a kid, has been buried by legalities and cost-saving measures.”

Canadian politicians often advocate measures to add or clear hospital beds, but Robert said this simply marginalizes vulnerable patients.

“It’s not to give them a better quality of life – it’s to push them in a corner and kill them with silence,” Robert said. “It’s not, ‘Let’s do our moral duty and actually give them the quality of life they deserve.’ It’s always to silence them, and it’s incredibly frustrating.”

Alex Schadenburg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, told The Dallas Express he thinks it is the “greatest injustice” to deny Foley lighting alternatives. He also said the recent suicide discussions were “almost abusive.”

“They are not providing him the services he needs – though he has his room, and he’s getting basic, basic, basic care,” Schadenburg said, citing Foley’s IV. “He gets some very basic, minor nutrition because it’s a sugar mixture they give you through that feeding tube, but it’s not going to keep him alive.”

He said the hospital could force Foley out, but it would be difficult because he requires such a “high level of care.” He said Foley is trapped in “bureaucratic craziness.”

“You’re talking about a hospital system that literally has billions of dollars,” Schadenburg said.

Fighting For Funding

Roger Foley is representing himself in litigation against the hospital, seeking funding for self-directed home care. 

Michael Alexander, an attorney who provides advice to Foley, told The Dallas Express the hospital could place him in the ICU. He said Foley fears this could potentially “end in his demise.”

“In light of their overall conduct of the past two months,” Alexander said, “I’m concerned that this is part of the plan, to get him to the ICU and move him toward that.”

Foley currently has several options going forward: He could remain in the hospital, transfer to a long-term care facility, obtain self-directed care, or return to a home care agency like where he was before. 

Alexander said a long-term care facility would have a “lower standard of care,” and Foley doesn’t want to return to a home care agency due to poor treatment in the past, which made him suicidal. 

So Foley has been fighting to obtain self-directed funding for in-home care, which would allow him to hire and direct his own caretakers. He was previously denied the self-directed funding program, but Alexander said he can fully direct his own employees. 

“What’s amazing about this is, in spite of his condition, his mental acuity is a very, very high level,” Alexander said. “He wants to succeed in his lawsuit so that he has the funds to get the care that he deserves at home.”

Schadenburg said while the country has “universal healthcare,” there are “multi-prongs to that healthcare.”

“Part of this is stupid or crazy,” Schadenburg said. “The cost of keeping him in the hospital is so much greater than the cost of sending him home and giving him self-directed care, where he gets, then, a budget of money that he spends on his employees, and they provide his care. That’s just so much cheaper.”

Robert and Alexander echoed similar points.

Despite Canada’s “universal healthcare,” hospitals in Ontario are allowed to charge patients in certain situations. As The Federalist previously reported, LHSC wrongfully charged Foley more than $1.55 million for inpatient care, which it dismissed in October 2023. This left Foley with a bill of more than $461,200. 

Schadenburg said the costs of long-term patients go beyond dollars – they make doctors cancel surgeries due to a lack of space. “This is another cost, and they really should just simply agree to send them home with self-directed care,” he said.

Pierre Poilievre, the leader of Canada’s Conservative Party, mentioned Foley’s situation in the House of Commons in 2020. 

Robert Foley said Poilievre simply used his brother as a “talking point.” “Well, my brother’s still there… My brother is a human life.”

Robert also said he is “disappointed” and “frustrated and angry” with the hospital’s lack of willingness to work with him and Roger.

“As a family member, you ask them, ‘Why can’t you just help my brother, and treat him with respect?’”