Protection of Conscience Project News
Service, not Servitude
When my mother was in her final months, suffering from a heart failure and other problems, she called me to her bedside with a pained expression. She took my hand and asked plaintively, “How do I get out of this mess?”
As a physician, I dreaded the question that might follow: Would I help her end her life by prescribing a lethal drug? . . . [Full Text]
Victoria Times Colonist
VANCOUVER — A faith-based nursing home has filed a complaint against a medical-assistance-in-dying doctor, accusing her of “sneaking in and killing someone” at the Orthodox Jewish home against the centre’s policy.
But Dr. Ellen Wiebe, who advocates for assisted suicide through Hemlock Aid and has assisted the legal death of a number of people since Canada’s ban on the practice was struck down in 2016, insisted she did nothing “unprofessional
She said she also honoured the family’s request for the death “to be kept private, because they didn’t want to deal with other people’s reactions.” . . . [Full Text]
CBC News
Dr. Frank Ewert wants protection from having to help a patient die — but Dying with Dignity Canada doesn’t want that to happen at the cost of patients receiving full access to end-of-life options.
“When I started back a number of years ago and vowed to follow the Hippocratic oath, I meant it. It was very profound to me, it resonated with my core beliefs, that I would always respect life, that I would do nothing to harm a patient,” Ewert told a legislative committee on Monday evening. . . [Full text]
Interviewer/host: Piya Chattopadhyay
SOUNDCLIP
VOICE 1: Bill 34 is being introduced by the Manitoba government to protect conscience rights for health care professionals, so that health care providers would not be required to participate in assisted suicide.
VOICE 2: While I cannot participate in assisted suicide for a couple of reasons. The first is I made a vow as a medical student 40 years ago that I wouldn’t kill patients, okay? And I’m not willing to cross that line.
PC: It has been less than 18 months now since medically assisted dying became legal in Canada. And health care workers are still adapting to that paradigm change. We just heard part of a video produced by the Coalition for Health Care and Conscience. It’s a national umbrella organization of religious groups, and as you heard it is lobbying for Bill 34 a proposed piece of legislation in Manitoba that was drafted to help health care workers with conscientious objections to helping end patients’ lives. Here’s Manitoba’s health minister Kelvin Goertzen. . . [Full episode transcript]
Brantford Expositor
A policy on handling requests for medically assisted dying is being prepared for the John Noble Home.
The home’s committee of management this week got a staff report on the drafting of a formal policy on managing medical assistance in dying, or MAID, requests, which is now required in long-term care homes by federal law.
The draft could be presented to the committee for review as early as next month and will be referred to the city’s legal department for comment.
Jennifer Miller, administrator for the home for the aged on Mount Pleasant Street, said that, so far, there have been no MAID requests from residents. . . [Full text]