Tag: British Columbia

One year after Canada’s medically assisted dying law, patients face uneven access

‘This dying, elderly man was stuck in the back of an ambulance so he could access his dying wishes’

CBC News

Nicole Ireland

“Martha” was stunned when her 78-year-old father told her he wanted a medically assisted death, after battling lung cancer for almost two years.

“It’s something you’ve never contemplated before in your family,” she said. “How do you prepare for this? This date that somebody’s going to pass away. It’s really hard.”

Martha has asked CBC News to use only her middle name, because children in her family don’t know that their grandfather’s death was medically assisted.  A year after Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying law passed on June 17, 2016, the issue remains highly controversial. . .  [Full text]

 

B.C. quietly creates system to help patients access medically assisted dying

Vancouver Sun

Bethany Lindsay

While other provinces try to piece together programs coordinating care for patients who want medical help ending their lives, B.C.’s health authorities have quietly created a system that’s winning praise from advocates.

This weekend, Ontario’s health minister said he hopes to develop a system that would allow patients to bypass doctors who object to assisted death, and connect them with health-care providers who can help. A similar system has been in place across B.C. for months already, according to Sue Hughson of Dying with Dignity Canada’s Vancouver chapter.

“We’re ahead, I’m happy to say. I was reading this (news story) and I was gloating a little bit, although I don’t like to gloat,” she said. . . [Full text]

 

Vancouver Island reports B.C.’s highest assisted death rate

‘This is a much more rapid rise than happened in the Netherlands,’ says Island Health doctor

CBC News

Deborah Wilson

Six months after medically assisted death became legal in Canada it is proving particularly popular on Vancouver Island.

From June 17, 2016 when Bill C-14 was enacted to Jan.10 2017, 188 medically assisted deaths were reported to the BC Coroners Service.

Of that number, 77 were residents of Vancouver Island, which has a population of about 760,000.

It represents two per cent of all deaths on the Island during that time, according to Dr. David Robertson, the executive lead on medical aid in dying for Island Health. . . [Full text]

 

Sacrificing hospitals, and freedom of conscience along with it

National Post

Douglas Farrow, Will Johnston

In 1639 three nuns got off the boat from France and began to build Hotel Dieu in Montreal, the first hospital in Canada. Over time, some 275 hospitals were built across our country by self-sacrificing Catholics who faithfully served the sick and dying out of love and compassion, without regard to their patients’ faith or lack of faith. Succeeding generations of Canadians have been grateful for the spiritual and physical care they have received at such places.

St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver is one of those Catholic hospitals. In keeping with its faith-based principles, it respects the Catholic sense of human dignity — meaning, among other things, that it does not perform abortions or participate in assisted suicide or euthanasia.

Ellen Wiebe, a physician who is also an abortion and euthanasia activist, together with a lawyer, Richard Owens, recently criticized St. Paul’s because it would not euthanize one of its dying patients, Ian Shearer. . .  [Full text]

 

 

B.C. hospices say they’ve been told to offer euthanasia

Lifesite News

Steve Weatherbee

BRITISH COLUMBIA, October 21, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Two of British Columbia’s five regional health authorities — one of them covering the “Bible Belt” area of the lower Fraser River valley just east of Vancouver — apparently have told voluntary societies offering hospice and palliative care that they must provide euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The Fraser Health Authority and its unnamed ally are not only flying in the face of — and against the philosophies and binding constitutions of most if not all the province’s 73 voluntary hospice societies — they have done so without consulting the hospice societies in their own regions. Apparently they have also jumped the gun on the provincial Health Ministry, which is months away from finalizing its own policy. . . [Full text]