Category: Procedures & Services

Hospital, care-home policies must change so more people can access medical assistance in dying

The Province

Alex Muir

. . . an individual who is suffering intolerably and whose death is reasonably foreseeable has a constitutional right to medical assistance in dying (MAiD) if certain other criteria are met. . .

. . . most people in Vancouver’s West End will end up at St. Paul’s, a hospital run by Catholic-based Providence Health, which doesn’t allow MAiD to be performed in any of its facilities. Anyone wanting to access MAiD once at St. Paul’s must be transferred to Vancouver General Hospital or another willing facility. . .

. . . end the practice of forced transfers by insisting that all taxpayer-funded facilities, including Providence facilities, provide MAiD on site. . .[Full text]

Move to call abortion and assisted suicide ‘human rights’ is ‘evil’, says Princeton professor

Christian Today

The United Nations Human Rights Committee has been accused of elevating individual freedom above moral considerations after recently including abortion and assisted suicide among the ‘human rights’ that should be protected by states.

The committee’s ‘General Comment’ on the right to life, issued at the end of October, argued for the decriminalisation of abortion and the removal of restrictions that could subject women or girls to ‘physical or mental pain’ if they are unable to terminate their pregnancy. . .

‘States parties should not introduce new barriers and should remove existing barriers that deny effective access by women and girls to safe and legal abortion, including barriers caused as a result of the exercise of conscientious objection by individual medical providers,’ it said. . .

On assisted suicide, the committee stated that where this was legal, ‘robust’ legal safeguards should be in place to protect patients from abuse. . . [Full text]

‘Rushed’ introduction of abortion services is unsafe and unacceptable say GPs

National Association of GPs says it will not be threatened or intimidated by Minister

The Irish Times

Martin Wall

Family doctors believe the “rushed manner” in which abortion services are being introduced by the Government is “unacceptable and unsafe”, the National Association of General Practitioners (NAGP) has said.

It said it objected to pressure being placed on frontline staff “to get some sort of service in place by January, purely to protect the Minister for Health’s political reputation”.

NAGP president Dr Maitiu O’ Tuathail said GPs would “not be threatened or intimidated by Minister Harris”. . . [Full text]

CEO of the ICGP Fintan Foy on the College’s recent EGM

Irish Medical Times

Fintan Foy

December 2, 2018 was a significant date in the history of the College for many reasons, when 310 members of the College attended an Extraordinary General Meeting convened by the College Board. This article provides an explanation on the background to the meeting and why the EGM as originally requested was not held.

I also describe the journey the College has been on since the Referendum result on the May 25, 2018. . .[Full text]