Changes will allow Providence Health patients to receive MAID

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B.C.’s Health Ministry has reached a deal with Providence Health to ensure patients at St. Paul’s Hospital have access to medical assistance in dying (MAID) in a clinical space next to the Vancouver hospital.

It means patients will not be forced to transfer to another health facility for end of life care, a traumatic experience several people have spoken of in light of the policy by Providence Health, a Catholic health organization, which bans medically assisted death for gravely ill patients.

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“I have directed (Vancouver Coastal Health) to take space next to the hospital and establish a clinical space and care setting for VCH use. This new dedicated clinical space will be established for patients at St. Paul’s Hospital to access compassionate and dignified MAID services,” Health Minister Adrian Dix said in a statement Wednesday.

The changes come after Postmedia reported about the case of Samantha O’Neill, who was forced to transfer out of St. Paul’s Hospital to a hospice to receive the end of life care she requested.

O’Neill, who was in excruciating pain due to her advanced cancer, was sedated to the point of unconsciousness during the transfer and did not regain consciousness before the life-ending medication was administered. Her parents, Jim and Gaye O’Neill, said this robbed them of their final hours with their daughter.

On Wednesday, the O’Neills called the changes “insane.”

“It’s taken a long time to do very little,” Jim O’Neill said.

They believe Providence Health should not be receiving public funds if it refuses to provide a full suite of medical services.

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“When they moved Sam to that storage room in the hospice, basically they were banishing her to a hall of sin because basically they consider what she was doing by wanting to die by MAiD as a sin,” Gaye O’Neill said.

Asked about the family’s concerns, Dix said: “This is a good solution that ensures people have access to MAID as patients at St Paul’s. It’s the right thing to do.”

He also thanked the O’Neill family for bringing forward their concerns and pushing for change.

The clinical space will be staffed by Vancouver Coastal Health staff and connected to St. Paul’s Hospital by a corridor. St. Paul’s patients who want to access MAiD will be discharged by Providence Health and transferred to the care of Vancouver Coastal Health in the purpose-built clinical space, which is expected to be completed by August 2024.

The O’Neills said the timeline means end-of-life patients could still face forced transfers in the coming months.

“Providence Health transfers two people a month, so (Dix is) going to condone Providence Health causing bodily harm to these medically fragile patients for the next 10 months,” Jim O’Neill said.

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“Conscientious objection should not put the patient at risk of harm,” Gaye O’Neill said.

The Ministry of Health said that while faith-based organizations have the right to refuse 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.

Canada’s federal legislation does not force any person or health care provider to carry out medically assisted death, so Dying with Dignity Canada has said such policies will remain in place unless there’s a successful court challenge.

Providence Health said in June that since medically assisted dying became legal in Canada in 2016, 402 of its patients have made formal requests for MAiD and 131 have followed through with a transfer to other facilities.

The policy prompted palliative-care doctor, Dr. Jyothi Jayaraman, to quit her job at a Vancouver hospice after it was taken over by Providence Health and subsequently stopped providing MAID.

Jayaraman, who has provided medical assistance in dying since it became legal in Canada in 2016, said she’s witnessed 12 instances where patients were forced to transfer out of Providence-run facilities to receive MAID, and each one has put the patient and their families through suffering in their final hours, she said.

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Daphne Gilbert, a University of Ottawa law professor, is working on a legal challenge to B.C.’s master agreement that allows Providence Health to opt out of providing MAID, saying the workarounds to allow MAID to be administered by another health agency aren’t good enough.

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