Doctor who 'giggled' while speaking about euthanising people - and claimed 'nobody is more grateful than her patients' - leaves viewers feeling 'uneasy' about Liz Carr's Better Off Dead? documentary

A Canadian doctor who has personally euthanised more than 400 people has left viewers feeling 'uneasy' as she 'giggled' while discussing the solemn topic with a disability rights campaigner in a new BBC documentary.

Speaking to Liz Carr's programme, Better Off Dead?, Dr Ellen Wiebe, who works with Dying With Dignity, had audiences feeling uncomfortable as she laughed and smiled while discussing assisted death.

'I love my job,' she said in the show, which aired on Tuesday night. 'I've always loved being a doctor and I delivered over a 1000 babies and I took care of families but this is the very best work I've ever done in the last seven years.

'And people ask me why  and I think well doctors like grateful patients and nobody is  more grateful than my patients now and their families.'Many found the comments 'disturbing', and took to social media to voice their concerns.

A Canadian doctor who has personally euthanised more than 400 people has left viewers feeling 'uneasy' as she giggled while discussing the solemn topic with a disability rights campaigner in a new BBC documentary 

'Enjoying her job a little too much I felt,' one wrote.

'She was extremely scary and oddly cheerful,' another added. 'But it might have been defensiveness which made her so very strange indeed.' 

'Her eagerness and her excitement over grateful patients was unsettling,' one poster penned. 

'Really eerie,' one comment read. 'Her job should bring feelings of solemnity, profoundness, sadness... anything but the weird euphoric state she seems to be in.'

Not everyone found the situation as unsettling, as many expressed it's possible the doctor was simply 'nervous'. 

'How often do you get interviewed on the telly?' one person defended.

'It's an emotive subject she seemed very nervous but she understands she is helping people, of their own free will, escape agony, And a screenshot doesn't make her creepy a society that allows people to suffer is creepy and sadistic.'

Ellen, who also runs a contraception and abortion clinic, told Liz she would 'of course' say no and 'has' done so to some people seeking Canada's controversial euthanasia programme - called MAiD.

Speaking to Liz Carr's programme, Better Off Dead?, Dr Ellen Wiebe, who works with Dying With Dignity, had audiences uncomfortable as she laughed and smiled while discussing assisted death

Not everyone found the situation as unsettling, as many expressed it's possible the doctor was simply 'nervous'

Many found the comments 'disturbing', and took to social media to voice their concerns about the programme

'We have a law and I obey this law and there are people who are not eligible under the law,' she explained. 

'There are situations were I might find somebody not eligible or eligible when another person wont because of the way our law is written.'

Ellen explained that the 'number one reason' people look into assisted death is autonomy.

'Everybody's different in what they think of as autonomy and control,' she added.

'They desperately want control. Like, they want to say "it's now".

'At the end we say "OK well I can get back here at seven o'clock is that ok?" and they'll say yes and they'll be so grateful that they can skip the last two days of their life.

'And I look at it and think all you really needed was some more drugs - but you want my drugs? I'll give them to you.'

She also claimed that everyone will have a different interpretation of what it means to suffer. 

'I've certainly met people who are no more disabled than I am saying that life is not acceptable in this state,' she explained.

'And I would say "hm, you and I are different". But not different in the sense of wanting to have some control.'

Liz travelled to Canada for the insightful documentary, as well as speaking to other activists and medical professionals on the topic

'So Liz right now you love life and you want to live but there's lots of nasty illnesses you might get,' the doctor continued.

'And if you got terminal cancer and you were having to deal with chemotherapy and radiation wouldn't you be thrilled if you had the choice to say "I'll go this far and no further?"'

'For me,' Liz replied. 'I'm concerned that giving the option and the right to a group of people puts another group of people at risk. But I don't feel you see that as a worry.'

'What you're saying is to protect what you consider vulnerable people you are condemning others to unbearable suffering,' Ellen said.

'And I am so glad, so glad that I'm a Canadian and that we have this law so that people can choose that or not choose that

'But to say that somebody has to suffer like that is simply cruel.' 

Last year, it was reported that Ellen said she helped euthanise a man who was previously deemed unsuitable for assisted suicide. 

Speaking in a seminar for physicians working in assisted suicide, she told attendees about the time she treated a patient who did not qualify for the end of life service. 

A MAiD assessor had rejected the unnamed man because he did not have a serious illness or 'the capacity to make informed decisions about his own personal health.'

The actress and disability rights campaigner is fronting a new BBC documentary titled Better off Dead?

But the man eventually made his way to Ellen, who cleared him, flew him out to Vancouver, and euthanised him, The New Atlantic said.

'It's the most rewarding work we've ever done,' Wiebe said of MAiD during a 2020 event in a video that's since been shared online. 

Obstetrician Stefanie Green, a colleague of Wiebe, also revealed that she's helped 300 people die in Canada's controversial MAID program, which eclipses similar programs in the US. 

Under Canadian law, any adult with a serious illness, disease, or disability can seek help in dying. Those with mental health issues are not eligible, but there are moves to expand access to this group. 

MAiD was first legalised in Canada in 2016 with the intention of providing an option for people for whom death was unavoidable and foreseeable.

In spring of 2022 it was expanded to include people who were living with debilitating disabilities or pain, even if their lives were not immediately at risk.

Liz travelled to Canada for the insightful documentary, as well as speaking to other activists and medical professionals on the topic. 

The Silent Witness actress has also claimed that 'as long as there's inequality, it is not safe to legalise' assisted suicide in the UK - after revealing how disabled people are told 'surely it's better to be dead than be you?'.

Laws in the UK currently prevent people from asking for medical help to die and Liz has been a vocal opponent of assisted dying for more than a decade.

Liz suffers from rare genetic condition arthrogryposis multiplex congenita, a condition that affects the joints and muscles, and has been a wheelchair user after falling ill aged seven.

The 52-year-old actress is known for playing forensic examiner Clarissa Mullery in BBC crime drama Silent Witness (pictured)

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Woman’s Hour on Thursday, she claimed 'as long as there's inequality, it is not safe to legalise' assisted suicide, adding: 'No amount of safeguards will prevent us from mistakes and abuse and coercion, that's my belief.'

She told the programme: 'On an everyday basis, disabled people are dealing with a lower expectation and people actually saying to their faces: "Gosh, surely it's better to be dead than be you?"

'That happens. It's shocking. So I wanted that to be the starting point and then let's unravel why that is and how that leads to my fear of legalising assisted suicide.'

The British actress added that 'of course we don't want [a person at the end of their life] to suffer'.

She continued: 'The problem is, actually, a lot of disabled people do suffer. But what they suffer from are the barriers and the obstacles, the fact they have to fight for support, the fact their isn't social care, the fact of attitudes, the fact of lack of access to so many things.

'You know, we do suffer. So don't then make it legal to end that suffering through assisted suicide, that's the fear.'

The actress revealed how she's treated more positively by people who know her as a famous face, compared to those who don't recognise her.

She explained: 'From my gaze, from somebody who lives in a world where, you know, if I'm recognised in the street, then people are giddy and excited and it's wonderful.

'If I'm not recognised in the street, then I'm ignored or sometimes I'm glanced at as I'm just trouble and I'm a problem and: "Oh god, have we got to get the ramp out? Ugh." I'm just a pain.

'So that difference shows me that oftentimes I think disabled people are just tolerated and I think that's the same with ill people and older people, and I think all those groups would be affected by these laws. 

'As long as there's that inequality, it is not safe to legalise... no amount of safeguards will prevent us from mistakes and abuse and coercion, that's my belief.'

The 52-year-old actress is known for playing forensic examiner Clarissa Mullery in BBC crime drama Silent Witness.

She also joined season two of dark fantasy Netflix series The Witcher starring Superman actor Henry Cavill, as well as BBC NHS comedy drama This Is Going To Hurt and Amazon supernatural series Good Omens alongside David Tennant and Michael Sheen.

Liz won a gong at the 2022 Olivier awards for her supporting role as polio survivor and physician Dr Emma Brookner in The Normal Heart, a play about the HIV/Aids epidemic in the 1980s.

BBC's documentary titled Better off Dead? is available on BBC iPlayer