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Most familial caregivers can't just leave once they start. Aside from the personal and emotional obligation/connection/guilt, they would then be guilty of elder abuse via abandonment or worse just "walking away." An elder in decline isn't like an old microwave just you just leave in the garage when it no longer works...
I understand. But is caregiver burnout a legitimate reason to perform MAID against a person's wishes?
In my own personal opinion, probably not. I would suspect that particular situation was the worst one that person had to make as a spouse. I don't think I could do that to my own partner even if she was deep in dementia.
To me the tragedy here is that the person was denied palliative but not MAID, despite wanting palliative. But I suppose that is what happens when you have a government healthcare system. The bureaucrats decide what resources they're willing to spend on you
It's a confusing field, at least on the US side. What people think is palliative care can be multiple programs, depending which care system you are in. For instance, the VA side for veterans has multiple modes of care before true palliative status, and it operates like coverage but it's not insurance at all; it's direct service. On the HMO side, depending which plan you have, palliative may be a center with nurse-assistance or it may just be a bag of drugs and go home. Depends on your plan. The illusion of healthcare being there for an elder is really a very complex technical jungle at the time when their cognitive ability to understand bureacracy is the worst.
Isn't the issue here more that it was explicitly against the wishes of the person who was euthanized?
If the caregiver burns out, the caregiver can leave. But by what right can they tell the state that the person they were caring for should be euthanized against their own wishes?