Nationally, a majority in all regions except Quebec said transferring a patient who wants MAID should be sufficient. In Quebec, 47% believed transferring the patient is adequate while 35% said the hospital should be mandated to provide MAID on-site.
The survey also found that 61% of Christians and 56% of those from other faiths supported transfers, while 54% of nonreligious individuals agreed. However, 70% of Canadians said doctors who object to MAID should be required to refer patients to another willing doctor.
In November, the British Columbia government announced a plan to provide euthanasia and assisted suicide at St. Paul’s Hospital — by making it available next to the hospital. The Ministry of Health announced it was taking over property beside the hospital to create a “clinical space” where St. Paul’s patients requesting euthanasia can receive it without having to be transferred to another setting.
In the announcement, the ministry said it had directed Vancouver Coastal Health authority to take land next to the hospital and “establish a clinical space and care setting for VCH use.”
The government said it is updating protocols for discharging and transferring St. Paul’s patients to the new site where MAID can take place.
The government said the “clinical space” will be staffed by Vancouver Coastal Health staff and be connected by a corridor to St. Paul’s. Patients who want MAID will be discharged from the hospital and transferred to the care of the regional health authority. The new site is expected to be completed in August 2024.
Providence Health Care, the Catholic health care provider that operates St. Paul’s, said at the time that the ministry’s announcement respected Providence’s position of not allowing MAID to be performed within the walls of a Catholic facility or setting.
The ministry said in an announcement at the time: “While faith-based organizations may opt not to offer MAID services at their facilities, they are expected to work with regional health authorities to ensure the option is available to patients who choose it.”
Archbishop J. Michael Miller said the directive “respects and preserves Providence’s policy of not allowing MAID inside a Catholic health care facility,” and the new patient discharge and transfer protocols are consistent with existing arrangements for transferring patients from its other hospice and palliative care sites, St. John Hospice and May’s Place.
“Providence Health Care and St. Paul’s Hospital will continue to provide compassionate care, in accordance with Catholic teachings, and support the physical, emotional, spiritual, and social needs of every patient we serve,” he said.
The government’s announcement came just hours before the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops released a statement reiterating its opposition to euthanasia in Catholic hospitals. Miller noted that the bishops had already drawn a line in the sand at their September 2023 plenary meeting when they stated unanimously that MAID would not be delivered at Catholic hospitals.
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The new statement formalized that stance by saying the bishops “unanimously and unequivocally oppose the performance of either euthanasia or assisted suicide (MAID) within health organizations with a Catholic identity.”
The bishops said: “Any efforts by governments or others to compel such facilities to perform MAID” would be “in violation of Catholic teachings” and would “deeply betray the identity of these institutions as Catholic and would not be in keeping with the Church’s moral teachings on the sanctity of life and the dignity of the human person.”
This article was originally published by The B.C. Catholic and is reprinted here with permission.
The B.C. Catholic is the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.