Manitobans denied assisted dying at 5 times national average, federal report shows

Marion Penner wants to die.

"You spend your days sitting in bed doing nothing, wondering why am I still here," said Penner, who spent her 94th birthday in Steinbach's Bethesda Regional Health Centre after a fall at home in December broke her pelvis.

Penner, who also suffers from chronic heart and kidney diseases, has been bedridden there since.

"What's the point, just to exist because of painkillers?" said Penner, with photographs of captured family memories lining the windowsill of her hospital room.

So, she applied for medically assisted dying (MAID).

In a letter sent to Shared Health, Steinbach doctor Monty Singh said he felt her conditions were incurable and serious, both necessary to qualify for MAID.

However, Penner says, she was quickly informed by doctors at BRHC in person, and over the phone by a nurse at Shared Health, that she did not qualify because she was too healthy.