A doctor who cared for her father through his final years with dementia has blasted Hollywood superstar George Clooney for what she calls a ‘risky’ and ‘irresponsible’ new film that risks encouraging vulnerable people to end their lives.

Dr Ramona Coelho, a family physician from Ontario, Canada, said Clooney’s upcoming movie In Love – about a man with early-onset Alzheimer’s who travels to Switzerland for an assisted suicide – will ‘romanticize death’ and trigger a ‘suicide contagion’ among people with dementia.

‘Turning assisted suicide into a Hollywood love story is dangerous,’ Coelho told the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview.

‘It romanticizes death for people who are vulnerable and afraid.’

Clooney,64,will star in In Love,based on Amy Bloom’s 2022 memoir In Love: A Memoir of love and Loss.

The story follows Connecticut couple Bloom and her husband Brian Ameche, an architect diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s in his mid-60s. Refusing to face the decline, he chose to die ‘standing tall, not on his knees’ at the Swiss euthanasia clinic Dignitas.

Clooney plays Ameche, with Annette Bening as Bloom. Filming begins in New England next month.

to many,it’s a love story about dignity and choice.

Actors George Clooney and Annette Bening will star as the husband and wife couple grappling with an Alzheimer’s diagnose

Dr Ramona Coelho cared for her dad during his dementia. she said Clooney’s movie could encourage other sufferers to end their lives prematurely

to Coelho, it’s a public-health risk.

‘If George Clooney makes death look stunning,sexy and noble,what message does that send to people who are sick,elderly or disabled?’ she said.

‘When d## ‘People say they’d rather be dead than have dementia. That’s the cruelest thing you could say to a loving daughter,’ she said.

“My father was still the world to me – he always will be.”

Canada legalized Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) in 2016, initially limited to terminally ill adults whose deaths were reasonably foreseeable.

But the law has since expanded to include people with chronic illness, disability, and soon – pending a parliamentary review – those with certain mental health conditions.

Dementia cases remain controversial as of questions about capacity and consent.

In the US, only a dozen states and Washington, DC, allow physician-assisted death under strict conditions.

None permit it for dementia patients, and Connecticut – where Amy Bloom and her husband lived – does not allow it at all.

That’s why the couple traveled to Switzerland, home to the Dignitas clinic, one of the few places where foreigners can legally end their lives.

Beyond her own family, Coelho has become one of Canada’s most outspoken critics of the country’s MAiD regime – one of the most permissive in the world.

The movie is based on the real-life Connecticut couple Brian Ameche and Amy Bloom.

They travelled to Switzerland’s notorious end of life clinic Dignitas, where Brian ended his life.

As a member of Ontario’s MAiD Death Review Committee, she has examined cases of dementia patients approved for euthanasia – and what she’s seen, she says, is alarming.

A recent report from Ontario’s Chief Coroner’s Office found clinicians were rushing through lethal approvals and failing to safeguard the vulnerable.It described cases where patients with little comp

Dementia Care: A focus on Life, Not Ending It

‘Patients trust the system. But sometimes the system gives up on them,’ she said.

Coelho believes dementia care must focus on meeting needs, not ending lives.

‘If people with dementia have their needs met, their quality of life can be high. The suffering comes when those needs are ignored.’

Coelho admits she hasn’t read Bloom’s memoir but is deeply uneasy about its premise – a devoted wife helping her husband die.

‘Supportive couples that help each other die always worry me,’ she said.

‘What looks like love can sometimes be coercion. We know how much pressure can exist within relationships, even when it looks loving from the outside.’

She noted that many people who seek assisted death do so out of guilt or fear of burdening their family.

The nondescript room on the outskirts of Zurich, Switzerland, where Dignitas visitors end their lives

Doctor-assisted deaths are widely available in Canada, though heavily restricted.