Opinion: It's time for B.C. authorities to face with sufferers like Sam O'Neill

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Sam O’Neill, a younger lady dying of inoperable terminal most cancers, requested medical help in dying (MAiD). She wished a peaceable finish to her excruciating struggling along with her household and associates by her aspect, however she didn’t get that.

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As an alternative, she was advised that she couldn’t have MAiD at her hospital — St. Paul’s in Vancouver — as a result of MAiD goes towards the Catholic values that dictate which well being providers are offered there.

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Sam selected to proceed the one manner she might. Her closing hours had been spent making ready for a switch to an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar workers. She was closely sedated in order that she might bear the brutal bodily ache of being transferred by ambulance to a brand new facility.

She acquired MAiD with out ever regaining consciousness. She missed her second for that final goodbye and so did her loving household. Her household turned their grief into motion, going public along with her story to specific their anger and disappointment.

After the circumstances of Sam’s demise turned public, many individuals requested, “Can this actually be true? Can a spiritual group pressure a affected person to go away a palliative care unit in a publicly funded hospital in downtown Vancouver to entry a authorized well being service in one other facility? A affected person who’s actually on her deathbed.”

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Sadly, it’s true, nevertheless it needn’t be and it shouldn’t be.

How then can it’s true? Beneath the B.C. Well being Ministry MAiD coverage, a corporation that receives greater than 50 per cent of its funding from the province should usually permit the evaluation and provision of MAiD in settings the place end-of-life providers are usually provided.

Nonetheless, there’s an exception: faith-based teams could determine to not permit the supply of MAiD of their amenities. St. Paul’s Hospital is operated by Windfall Well being Care, a “Catholic health-care group.”

So because of this Sam needed to be sedated to the purpose of unconsciousness and transferred out of St. Paul’s to entry MAiD. The B.C. MAiD coverage is why she misplaced the chance for the assisted demise she wished.

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Since 2016, 131 sufferers have, like Sam, needed to switch out of Windfall Well being Care amenities with a view to entry MAiD. And that’s simply the numbers from one faith-based group in B.C. From January by October 2022, 7.7 per cent of MAiD deaths in Vancouver Coastal Well being concerned compelled transfers. And that’s simply the numbers from one well being authority in B.C.

Publicly funded well being care establishments make use of and, extra importantly, serve individuals of all faiths and backgrounds. Sam didn’t have a selection about the place she went for palliative care. She didn’t share St. Paul’s opposition to MAiD. However she was impacted by it in a devastating manner.

So what’s the answer? The Well being Ministry might change its stance towards publicly funded, religion based mostly health-care organizations the place end-of-life providers are usually provided. It might instantly eradicate the exception in its MAiD coverage, forcing these faith-based teams to permit the supply of MAiD.

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The religion-based organizations would seemingly instantly elevate an objection and level to what’s referred to as the Grasp Settlement. That is an settlement signed in 1995 between the B.C. minister of well being and the Denominational Well being Care Services Affiliation (a gaggle of faith-based organizations). On this settlement, the province agreed to make sure that the members of this affiliation would proceed to have the correct to find out the mission and values of their amenities and to “personal, handle, function and conduct the affairs of their respective amenities and to hold out their respective non secular missions.”

However the Well being Ministry might terminate the grasp settlement except the faith-based organizations cease compelled transfers for MAiD. The Well being Ministry is free to terminate the grasp settlement by giving one year’ written discover. The ministry might inform the faith-based teams that they have to permit the supply of MAiD or else the exit provisions of the grasp settlement might be triggered.

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The B.C. authorities should now make a selection. Does it stand with the Catholic Church? Or does it stand with sufferers like Sam? It’s so simple as that. Will it defend the flexibility of the Catholic Church to find out that British Columbians may be denied authorized health-care providers simply because they don’t accord with Catholic values? Or will it defend the flexibility of British Columbians to find out the course of their lives and their deaths in accordance with their very own values?

It’s too late to vary Sam’s demise and to present her and her household the peaceable finish she deserved. However it’s not too late to forestall different egregiously merciless and dangerous compelled transfers.

Might Samantha’s legacy be the top of compelled transfers.

Jocelyn Downie is professor, colleges of regulation and drugs, at Dalhousie College in Halifax. Daphne Gilbert is professor, school of regulation, on the College of Ottawa.

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