Tag: Dying with Dignity Canada

Hotel-Dieu, Hospice hope to avoid providing doctor-assisted death

Windsor Star

Brian Cross

Those seeking to escape the agony of incurable illnesses will have the legal right to choose doctor-assisted suicide as of June 6, but two publicly funded institutions that care for the region’s dying hope they won’t be forced to allow it within their walls.

Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare runs the area’s only in-hospital palliative care unit, where five, six or seven deaths a week is not unusual. As a faith-based Catholic hospital, it does not believe it should participate in physician-assisted suicide, said CEO Janice Kaffer.

The Hospice of Windsor and Essex County has a policy opposing physician-assisted suicide, citing a “respect for the dignity and sanctity of human life,” and asserting that it’s not part of palliative care. It provides palliative care to hundreds of area patients in their homes, as well as in its hospice residences in Windsor and Leamington. Its philosophy is if someone’s pain and symptoms can be well managed, they don’t need to resort to a physician-assisted death. CEO Carol Derbyshire said Canada’s hospices are trying to convince the government to let them to opt out. . . [Full text]

 

Ellen Wiebe is the doctor seeking a smoother path to assisted death

The Globe and Mail

Elizabeth Church

The physician who helped a Calgary woman with ALS to hasten her death following a court’s approval says more needs to be done to remove roadblocks and prevent unnecessary suffering for those who meet the legal requirements to end their life.

Ellen Wiebe, the Vancouver doctor who was with the woman when she died Monday night, said last-minute difficulties obtaining the necessary drugs and finding a second doctor as required by the court underscore the need for clear professional guidelines and a national directory of those willing to provide a medically assisted death. . . [Full text]

 

Ottawa’s Catholic palliative care hospital under pressure as it refuses to do euthanasia

LifeSite News

Lianne Laurence

OTTAWA, March 2, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Ottawa’s largest palliative care hospital, the Catholic Bruyère Continuing Care Centre, says it will neither euthanize nor assist its patients to commit suicide when those options become legally available June 6.

Bruyère’s vice-president of public affairs and planning, Amy Porteous, told the Ottawa Citizen that the hospital is “waiting for clarification” on the protocol for transferring patients who request euthanasia or assisted suicide after that date.

Bruyère is among 21 Catholic health care institutions administered by the Catholic Health Sponsors of Ontario.

Other institutions under CHSO’s oversight include Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital and Providence Centre, the Pembroke Regional Hospital, Penetanguishene’s Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care, and Sudbury’s St. Joseph’s Continuing Care Centre. . . [Full text]

 

ALS sufferer first Canadian to receive judge’s approval for assisted death

 The Globe and Mail

Sean Fine, Elizabeth Church

A woman suffering from the paralyzing degenerative disease known as ALS has become the first to receive a judicially authorized assisted death in Canada.

The woman received permission from a Calgary judge in a hearing last week from which the media and other members of the public were barred. Known as Ms. S in a ruling made public this week, she then travelled to Vancouver where two physicians attended to her on private property.

Ellen Wiebe, a Vancouver physician, confirmed the death Monday night, saying she was with Ms. S. and pronounced her dead at 8:30.

Ms. S. “suffered unnecessarily because she was required to travel from Calgary to Vancouver on the last day of her life, since she could not find a Calgary physician to help her,” she said in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail.

Ms. S, a retired psychologist who loved hiking in the mountains, was diagnosed with the incurable disease in 2013 after developing a speech impediment, and was told last October that nothing more could be done to slow its progress. . . . [Full text]

 

Calgary woman dies after being granted right to physician-assisted suicide

 Right to die: ‘We were grateful and honoured to be able to help her,’ says doctor

CBC News

A Calgary woman who received a legal exemption for doctor-assisted death has ended her life in Vancouver with the help of two physicians.

It is believed she is the first person in Canada outside of Quebec to be allowed to legally end her life with help from a doctor.

The woman, who cannot be identified because of a court-ordered publication ban, died with her family at her side.

“My colleague and I were grateful and honoured to be able to help her,” Dr. W, a clinical professor at the University of British Columbia, said in an e-mail to The Canadian Press. The doctor also cannot be ID’d due to the publication ban. . . [Full text]