Sandra Martin has written obituaries for everyone from Queen Elizabeth II to Margaret Thatcher, Betty Fox — mother of Marathon of Hope runner Terry Fox — Nelson Mandela, Farley Mowat and Jackie Burroughs.
“I do interviews, I listen, I fact check and I present all the facts,” said Martin, who was in Victoria this week as a keynote speaker at Let’s Talk: End of Life Choices, a community forum sponsored by the Victoria Chapter of Dying With Dignity Canada, set for Saturday at Oak Bay High School. When she was tasked with writing Mulroney’s obituary in February, for example, she included a mention of Karlheinz Schreiber, a German-Canadian businessman who allegedly paid a bribe to Mulroney to ensure the purchase of Airbus aircraft.
Another keynote speaker at the event is Toronto physician Dr. Blair Bigham, assistant professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, who has witnessed hundreds of deaths since 2006, some “horrific,” but others “beautiful” — “with the patient interacting with their loved ones in a peaceful and calm atmosphere, with music in the background.”
“As physicians, we are obligated to the patient, who may have expressed to us their wishes. But sometimes families put their own grief ahead of the patient’s wishes, making it very hard for everyone.”