Category: Canada

Ontario hospitals allowed to opt out of assisted dying, raising conscientious accommodation concerns

National Post

Sharon Kirkey

Ontario will allow hospitals to opt out of providing assisted death within their walls, provoking charges from ethicists that conscientious accommodation has gone too far.

Elsewhere in the country, a divide is already shaping up, with half of voluntary euthanasia cases in Quebec reportedly occurring in Quebec City hospitals — and few in Montreal.

The situation highlights the messy state of the emotionally charged debate as the provinces wrestle with the new reality of doctor-assisted death, and as the Senate takes a proposed new law further than the governing Liberals are prepared to go. . . [Full Text]

 

Uncertainty, confusion reign for physicians over assisted suicide

Catholic Register

Michael Swan

With no law in place to govern assisted suicide, physicians and vulnerable patients face uncertainty, confusion and more opinions than facts.

“It’s a matter of weeks before people (in healthcare) are going to have to choose between their conscience and their career,” said Deacon Larry Worthen, executive director of the Christian Medical and Dental Society.

Doctors have told Worthen that some hospitals have already put in place procedures and protocols for doctor-assisted death. Some hospitals will force objecting doctors to refer for assisted suicide, even though, said Worthen, “our physicians are just unable to refer” for reasons of conscience.

Worthen and the doctors he represents want Bill C-14 passed, but they also want the Senate to add specific conscience protections for objecting doctors and health-care institutions.

“We’re pleased with what’s there, but we want to be more specific,” he said. “We want to protect facilities. We want to protect against the requirement to refer.” . . . [Full Text]

 

Let’s not become Belgium when it comes to assisted suicide

Imagine . . .  being the first hospital in human history to be closed for refusing to kill patients in its care.

National Post

Barbara Kay

In February, the archbishop of Edmonton announced that in the event of legalized euthanasia, physicians and other health-care workers of Covenant Health Hospital would not be participating in the active termination of patients’ lives.

In response last month, Alberta’s associate health minister Brandy Payne stated that Covenant Health’s conscientious objection would be respected, and that patients requesting life termination there would be transferred. That seems reasonable. After all, when conscripted soldiers refuse to go to war for reasons of conscience, they are not asked to provide their own combat replacement.

In Quebec, by contrast, where euthanasia is already in effect, any Christian institution that refuses to comply with the legislation will be shut down. (Imagine the dubious distinction of being the first hospital in human history to be closed for refusing to kill patients in its care.)

Ethics-based tension in the medical community is but one of many concerns we must acknowledge to be inherent in Bill C-14. . . [Full  Text]

 

Catholic groups believe conscience rights will be respected on assisted suicide

Catholic Register

Michael Swan

Despite Bill C-14 providing no conscience protection for institutions, Catholic health-care providers expect governments will respect their right to opt out of assisted suicide.

“The fact that it’s not in Bill C-14 doesn’t mean that you can look at it as an interpretation that therefore conscience doesn’t count,” said David Nash, chair of the Catholic Health Association of Ontario. “You have to look at it from the point of view that the federal government doesn’t want to step on provincial toes.”

Nash spoke as the final vote on Bill C-14, the federal government’s assisted suicide legislation, was set to be held in the House of Commons. The bill passed May 31 and was sent to the Senate.

The history in Ontario would suggest provincial authorities will respect the Catholic legacy in health care and avoid pushing Catholic hospitals, hospices and nursing homes into either providing or allowing assisted suicide on their premises, said Nash, a London, Ont., lawyer. . . [Full Text]

    

Covenant Health exclusion on assisted death condemned

Transferring patients would be ‘unfortunate,’ says Dying with Dignity Edmonton co-chair Bradley Peter

CBC News

Advocates for physician-assisted death are condemning a decision which will allow Covenant Health to opt out provincial regulations on the practice.

The Supreme Court of Canada ordered the federal government to have a law in place allowing physician-assisted death by June 6. But the bill addressing that order still faces a battle in the Senate, so it appears unlikely the deadline will be met. Meanwhile, provincial governments are still grappling with how to address regulations for the new law.

The Alberta government has said Convenant Health  –  a Catholic-run and publicly funded health organization  –  will be allowed to opt out for conscience reasons. Patients at hospitals and continuing-care facilities run by Covenant Health will be transferred to other health facilities if they seek a physician-assisted death.  . .[Full Text]