I ARRIVED in Canada in 2016 to start as the Rector of a city parish. A few months earlier, the Parliament of Canada had passed federal legislation that allows eligible adults in Canada to request medical assistance in dying. This became known as MAiD (Comment, 5 January).

I did not expect this to have any particular impact on me. I was wrong. In my first week, I answered a phone call at the church office. “Hello, my name is Tricia, and I need to speak to an Anglican priest before two o’clock tomorrow.” I introduced myself as the new Rector, and asked her, “Why the urgency?”

“I am going to die at 2.30 tomorrow and need to speak with a priest now,” she replied. “Well, you see, I feel a huge burden on my family. My son needs money and needs to sell my apartment. I am just a burden for him. I feel so guilty. . .”

Our conversation lasted half an hour, and Tricia spoke the B-word — “burden” — repeatedly. I offered to meet her the next morning, but she declined, as she explained that she needed time to tidy her apartment. She did not give me her number or address, and I never heard back from her. I do not know to this day what Tricia decided, and whether our conversation made her rethink her decision, or cancel the appointment, or do neither.

Over the next five years, I found that many in my congregation signed their MAiD forms, but never activated them, keeping them in the bedside drawer just in case. Others were distressed when MAiD was suggested inappropriately or even promoted.

JAMES had been a stalwart member of the congregation for many decades and had been living with cancer for several years. I visited him in hospital after he had a sudden collapse in his health.

I arrived wearing my clerical collar, and James was in a bay with three other very ill patients. He was sitting up in bed with a MAiD brochure in his hands. “Hello, Fr Jonathan, they want me to kill myself,” he said. “What do you think?” The other three patients all turned their heads to listen to my response.

James had been handed the MAiD team’s brochure by a member of the medical team, and this caused huge distress to his family. The medical team had not discussed James’s medical situation with either him or his wife. The MAiD team’s own rules stated that a patient should be issued with the brochure only if and when they requested it. James died naturally some weeks later, at home, surrounded by his family, with good pain control. I officiated at his funeral.

I attended a training day at which I met Agatha. She told me that her husband died “at a time of his choosing” (the obituary expression used for MAiD in the local newspapers) the previous month. She went on to say, with tears in her eyes, that it was the day after they had had a huge argument that was not resolved.

Over the border in Oregon, research figures indicate that 46 per cent of those who apply for assisted suicide speak of “feeling a burden” as a reason for asking for it. The “slippery slope” issue in Canada is clearly present: there are currently proposals to extend MAiD to children and those with mental-health conditions.

PALLIATIVE-CARE doctors in the UK are overwhelmingly opposed to a change in the law on assisted suicide. They know that palliative care remains seriously underfunded, and that changing the law amid a backdrop of unmet need multiplies the risk to vulnerable groups (Paul Vallely, 18 October).

I urge the UK Government to fund palliative and hospice care across the UK properly, so that access to pain- and symptom-management is available for all.

Concerns about Kim Leadbeater’s Private Member’s Bill are already being raised across all the main political parties (News, 15 November): the Health Secretary, Wes Streeting; the Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood; and the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Sir Ed Davey, have all indicated that they will vote against.

The most vulnerable in our society need to be protected. I urge MPs to oppose the Bill at its Second Reading on Friday.

The Revd Jonathan LLoyd is a Canadian-British retired palliative-care social worker and an Anglican priest, who has worked in hospice and parish settings in England, Denmark, and Canada.

Real names have not been used, and some details have been changed to ensure anonymity.

The Church Times and Modern Church will be hosting a webinar on assisted dying, “Can a ‘good death’ be assisted?’ on Thursday 28 November. Find out more here.