A Canadian man with a debilitating neurological disease says staff at an Ontario hospital repeatedly raised the possibility of medically assisted death while he was fighting to obtain the home care he says he needs to survive. Roger Foley, who has spinocerebellar ataxia, told Fox News Digital that the conversations began in 2016 at Victoria Hospital, part of the London Health Sciences Centre, where he says he has remained hospitalized for years while seeking a self-directed home-care arrangement.
In a July 7, 2026, letter obtained by Fox News Digital, Foley's attending physician said he could safely leave the hospital if the Ontario government authorized an individualized home-care plan. «By any reasonable clinical standard, you could be discharged from our hospital if you had adequate support at home,» wrote Dr. George K. Dresser, an attending internal medicine physician at London Health Sciences Centre.
Dresser said Foley has been medically stable for much of his prolonged hospitalization, despite suffering hospital-acquired infections, and argued that conventional home-care programs have failed to accommodate his complex medical needs. «You have been at London Health Sciences Centre because the unique needs that you have cannot be met by existing programs in the community,» the physician wrote.
Dresser described Foley as «a square peg in a round hole,» arguing that the hospital's standardized approach to care is poorly suited to a patient who requires consistent caregivers and highly individualized assistance. The physician also suggested that keeping Foley hospitalized may be unnecessarily expensive for Ontario's health-care system. «A community-based, self-directed arrangement would in all likelihood cost substantially less than continued acute admission, while delivering far better-matched care,» Dresser wrote.
He urged Ontario's Ministry of Health to authorize funding that would allow Foley to recruit, train and manage his own personal support workers, potentially ending his yearslong hospitalization. Foley alleged that assisted dying was raised again during a disputed discharge process in 2017, when he says he was threatened with daily hospital charges of approximately $1,500 if he did not accept the care arrangements being offered.
«I don't want to die,» Foley told Fox News Digital, describing his determination to return to his apartment with caregivers of his choosing. Foley also alleged that the hospital removed lighting accommodations for his neurological condition in May 2025, making it difficult for him to receive care and consume food and fluids.
Foley said the lighting dispute is particularly serious because his neurological condition makes him sensitive to certain wavelengths of light, including those emitted by fluorescent fixtures. For years, he said, the hospital accommodated his condition with amber-spectrum lighting that allowed caregivers to assist him without triggering his symptoms. But in May 2025, Foley alleged the hospital withdrew those accommodations and began requiring staff to provide care under fluorescent lighting.
He claimed the change has made it increasingly difficult to receive routine assistance, including help with eating and drinking, because he must wear large, heavy protective goggles that place additional strain on his already compromised neck. Foley said he has sometimes relied on personal support workers from outside the hospital to help him consume fluids and that financial limitations have prevented him from arranging enough outside assistance to meet all his needs.
He further alleged that some hospital employees have been instructed not to provide care unless fluorescent lights are turned on, even though he says other staff members have been able to assist him using the amber lighting without difficulty. Foley also claimed hospital personnel began asking him questions about suicidal thoughts again around the time his lighting accommodations were withdrawn. Unlike his earlier experiences, he said he refused to engage in those conversations because he no longer trusted the hospital's intentions.
He said he does not refuse to discuss his mental health in general, and is not opposed to mental health assessments or receiving appropriate mental health support. However, he said previous experiences with hospital staff have made him wary of engaging in such discussions, especially because he said medical assistance in dying had previously been raised as an option.
The allegations mark the latest chapter in what Foley described as a nearly decade-long struggle to obtain the kind of care that would allow him to leave the hospital and return to his own home. Despite his prolonged hospitalization, Foley said he has never given up his apartment, which he described as accessible and equipped with a ceiling lift to assist with his mobility needs.
«I have my own apartment. I still pay all my bills,» he told Fox News Digital. «The last 10 years I haven't given up my apartment and I have wonderful community personal support workers that are ready to start working for me as soon as I get the self-directed funding.»