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Life Care Network takes stand against 'gospel of euthanasia' seniors face
Lino DeFacendis cares for his grandmother in her final years.
Photo courtesy Lino DeFacendis
October 11, 2024
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OSV News photo/Simone Risoluti, Vatican Media
Canadian senior citizens with trepidations about contending with a medical regime increasingly preaching the gospel of euthanasia have a new ally.
Life Care Network has been established in the Greater Toronto Area, the mission of this new free referral service being to identify, vet and submit suitable caregiver candidates with pro-life values to prospective elderly clients or their power of attorney. The senior citizen or their representative will take charge of the interviewing and potential hiring.
Alluding to a 2022 Ipsos survey indicating that 95 per cent of Canadians wish to age at home, Lino DeFacendis, CEO and founder of the Life Care Network, told The Catholic Register that the chosen personal support worker (PSW) will help their patron maintain dignified and comfortable independence.
Additionally, this PSW infused with “Christian moral principles” will help the senior citizen in their care navigate the health-care system.
“It’s really to keep an eye because there could be visiting doctors, government-funded PSWs and even family members who covertly, or even subtly, suggest ‘why don’t you go kill yourself,’ ” said DeFacendis, a Catholic who attends St. Joseph the Worker Parish in Thornhill, north of Toronto. “Sorry to be blunt, but this is what we are facing.”
DeFacendis, an engineer who also served the University of Toronto for over 12 years in commercialization, business development and partnership positions, said his experiences caring for his parents before they departed inspired him to start this charity.
Though DeFacendis, 64, said he trusted the Hippocratic Oath and the medical system, multiple moments caused unease. He particularly recalled an interaction with a physician in a hospital emergency ward with his mother in the months before her death.
“This kind doctor (came) by, after a while all smiles and everything, and suggested that I let my mother go peacefully,” said DeFacendis. ‘“Just let her go. She doesn’t need any blood transfusions.’ I had a chat with Mom and she said, ‘no, of course I want a blood transfusion.’ Anyway, she passed a few weeks later.”
As for his Dad who passed away a few years later, DeFacendis said it “just didn’t make sense” when the doctors opted to immediately halt all his medications to establish a baseline for treatment.
However, the development that awakened DeFacendis’ call to serve the most was the rapid rise of mortalities attributed to medical assistance in dying (MAiD) procedures since the passage of Bill C-14 in 2016. Five years later, Bill C-7 broadened access to assisted suicide by removing reasonable foreseeability of natural death as an eligibility criterion.
Euthanasia has emerged as the fifth-leading cause of death in Canada in just six years. In 2016, the number of fatalities attributed to MAiD was 1,018. By 2022 that annual figure ballooned thirteenfold to 13,241 (Statistics Canada is expected to release its 2023 report later this month).
An organization very much in its infancy, DeFacendis said it is paramount for the Life Care Network to attain a robust amount of visibility and donation support for this free-of-charge service for seniors to be transformative and enduring.
Working in the not-for-profit’s favour is that there is a large pool of pro-life caregivers across Canada actively seeking work, said DeFacendis. This will make it feasible for the network to support clients whether they live in Toronto, Burnaby or Moncton.
There are also pre-existing care entities, the Compassionate Community Care (CCC) for one, rooting for the Life Care Network to succeed in its mission.
Kathy Matusiak Costa, executive director of CCC, said she met DeFacendis when her organization came to St. Joseph the Worker Parish to lead a training program that espouses the importance of visiting and serving seniors in your community. She was instantly supportive of the Life Care Network upon hearing about the initiative.
“I thought it was excellent,” said Costa. “It is most pertinent now as people are looking for dedicated and especially sympathetic organizations they can rely on for support — almost like a refuge.”
Costa added that since the CCC publicly endorses independent living, she said it is “phenomenal” that the Life Care Network will “work to find proper, effective care” for seniors who wish to spend their golden years in their own homes.
DeFacendis is currently completing all the PSW candidate identification and screening efforts. If the Life Care Network continues to grow, he will seek to grow the team. For now, the day-to-day is his shoulders.
“I am motivated and blessed to be able to do this,” said DeFacendis.
Visit https://www.lifecarenetwork.ca/ for more information.
(Amundson is an associate editor and writer for The Catholic Register.)
A version of this story appeared in the October 13, 2024, issue of The Catholic Registerwith the headline "Putting the care back in end-of-life care".
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