Woman featured in pro-euthanasia commercial wanted to live, say friends - National Post

Jennyfer Hatch, 37, was the central figure of All Is Beauty, a three-minute film produced by Simons that celebrated Hatch’s last days before seeking medically assisted death. Photo by La Maison Simons/YouTubeArticle contentThe woman featured in a glamourous pro-euthanasia commercial for a Canadian clothing retailer only opted for assisted suicide after her years-long attempts to secure proper health care failed, friends have revealed.

Jennyfer Hatch, 37, was the central figure of All Is Beauty, a three-minute film produced by Simons that celebrated Hatch’s last days before seeking medically assisted death.

Last week, CTV confirmed that Hatch was the same woman who had spoken to them in June about her failed attempts to find proper treatment for Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a rare and painful condition in which patients suffer from excessively fragile skin and connective tissues.

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“I feel like I’m falling through the cracks so if I’m not able to access health care am I then able to access death care?’ And that’s what led me to look into MAID,” Hatch told CTV in June under a pseudonym.

Like more than a million British Columbians, Hatch was left without primary care after her family doctor moved away. And so, after her Ehlers-Danlos diagnosis 10 years ago, Hatch’s treatment had largely consisted of a chaotic and ineffective stream of specialist appointments, none of whom had any background in her condition.

“It is far easier to let go than keep fighting,” she told CTV.

Even when it seemed apparent that her condition was terminal, Hatch noted that the B.C. health-care system hadn’t even been able to provide her with appropriate palliative care.

However, B.C. was quick to approve Hatch’s application for MAID. “There were no other treatment recommendations or interventions that were suitable to the patient’s needs or to her financial constraints,” reads a CTV excerpt of the MAID approval issued to Hatch by Fraser Health, the health agency serving B.C.’s Lower Mainland.

None of these complicating factors were mentioned in the Simons ad, which instead highlighted what it called the “hard beauty” of assisted suicide.