Category: Canada

Vancouver bishop speaks out on conscience rights, end-of-life care

LifeSite News

Lianne Laurence

VANCOUVER, August 22, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — Archbishop Michael Miller has reaffirmed that health care practitioners cannot be “pressured or coerced” into providing assisted suicide or euthanasia, which are now legal in Canada under Bill C-14, passed June 17.

In an August 11 letter to all hospitals and Catholic health care institutions in his diocese of approximately 430,000 Catholics, Miller stated that the “conscience of caregivers, physicians, nurses, and support staff must always be respected” and health care professionals should not be discriminated against for refusing to kill their patients by medical means or refusing to provide a “direct effective referral.”

“We maintain as a fundamental principle that any action or omission which of itself or by intention causes or hastens death is a grave violation of the commandment: ‘You shall not kill’,” he wrote. . . [Full text]

Christian doctors’ group calls referring patients for assisted death ‘morally the same’

Christian Medical and Dental Society prefers ‘total transfer of care’ to other doctors in such cases

CBC News

The head of the Christian doctors’ group that met recently with Manitoba’s health minister says doctors with religious or moral objections to physician-assisted dying should not be forced to issue referrals to patients but instead allow patients to switch doctors altogether.

The Christian Medical and Dental Society met with Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen on July 11 to lobby for conscience protection for doctors who object to physician-assisted death.

The group is also asking Ontario’s top court to reverse a provincial government policy requiring physicians to refer patients who want an assisted death to another doctor. . . [Full text]

MUHC’s assisted death policy repealed: Barrette

Montreal Gazette

Caroline Plante

QUEBEC — The McGill University Health Centre has repealed its policy exempting the palliative care unit from offering medical aid to die, said Health Minister Gaétan Barrette on Wednesday.

“This morning, I met with Mr. (Normand) Rinfret and he told me that as of this very moment, the policy has been repealed,” Barrette said, referring to the MUHC’s executive director. “As we speak today, no patient can be transferred out of the palliative care unit at the MUHC, and medical aid in dying will be made available in the unit itself.” . . . [Full text]

Barrette chastises MUHC over policy not to provide medically assisted death

Montreal Gazette

Caroline Plante

QUEBEC — The McGill University Health Centre is being forced to backtrack on a policy that exempts its palliative care unit from helping patients die.

Health Minister Gaétan Barrette issued a strongly worded letter to the MUHC’s director general Wednesday, urging him to change the policy, which he says does not respect the law.

“To say that medical aid to die will not be offered in a particular unit … poses a serious problem when it comes to respecting patients’ lawful right to receive end-of-life care,” the minister wrote. . . [Full text]

“Now you want to crush every tiny focus of opposition”

Physicians’ Alliance Against Euthanasia Open letter to Mme Véronique Hivon

Note: Véronique Hivon, now a member of the Quebec National Assembly, was Minister of Health in the previous government and was responsible for bringing forward Quebec’s euthanasia law.

Mme Hivon:

You label as « ideology » the decision made by the McGill University Health Centre to not euthanize patients on the palliative care ward.

“The patients at the end of life are the ones who should have their rights respected and be at the centre of the organization of care”, you say. If that is what you really believe,

  • where were you when the number of palliative care beds at the MUHC was reduced for budgetary reasons?
  • When the specialized geriatrics unit was closed completely?
  • Why do you not speak out when patients are transferred all over the hospital and the city for trivial reasons, as is regularly done in Quebec?

What other than ideology could make you want to force hospitals, not only to kill patients, but to kill them in the one place where they most need to be protected?

Palliative care professionals are experts in easing the pain and suffering of terminally ill patients, accompanying them to the very end of their lives, with no need to kill them in order to do so. Now they are struggling, all over Quebec, to continue providing the same peace at the end of life in a situation where death is being promoted. Yes, promoted. This law was passed against the better judgment of those who know best how to care for the dying. Now you want to eliminate even the little safe space that is left for patients and professionals. All they ask for is one place in the hospital where there is no risk of being killed.

You got what you wanted when this law passed. Now you want to crush every tiny focus of opposition to your favourite project.

That is more than ideology. It’s intolerance, pure and simple.

We support the freedom of the palliative care professionals at the MUHC (and at every hospital) to ensure there are safe spaces for patients.

Yours truly,

[Original text and over sixty signatories]