Lady with terminal most cancers pressured to switch from St. Paul's Hospital for assisted dying

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Samantha O’Neill by no means anticipated that, at 34-years-old, she’d have to consider medically assisted dying.

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Nor did her household anticipate that the hospital the place she was handled for terminal most cancers would deny her that proper. St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver is run by Windfall Well being Care, a Catholic well being group that opposes medical help in dying and won’t let it occur in its 10 hospitals and care services.

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O’Neill’s household and Dying with Dignity Canada say it’s unacceptable {that a} taxpayer-funded hospital like St. Paul’s — which is getting a $2 billion substitute in 2027 — forces dying sufferers to depart its facility to get MAID.

“It’s such a heartbreaking state of affairs. The entire level of MAID is to die with dignity,” mentioned her cousin Taryn Bodrug, who lives in Victoria and was with O’Neill in her last days. “She didn’t get that. There was no dignity in getting transferred to a different place for a matter of coverage.”

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Canada’s federal laws doesn’t drive any particular person or well being care supplier to hold out medically assisted dying, so Dying with Dignity’s CEO Helen Lengthy mentioned such insurance policies will stay in place until there’s a profitable court docket problem.

In April 2022, O’Neill was working her dream job for the Canada Working Collection in Vancouver and operating marathons on the weekend when a extreme ache in her abdomen landed her within the emergency room at St. Paul’s.

Docs discovered a tumour the dimensions of a softball and O’Neill was identified with Stage 4 cervical most cancers that was inoperable, and terminal. O’Neill had chemotherapy and radiation to lengthen her life, however by this February, the ache was so debilitating, she started contemplating MAID.

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Bodrug shared her cousin’s textual content from Feb. 14 when she acquired information she had certified for assisted dying: “it’s loopy to even be eligible. like how. i’m 34. this doesn’t appear actual.”

O’Neill’s determination to die with the assistance of a doctor added a layer of trauma her household wasn’t ready for.

She must be transferred out of St. Paul’s Hospital due to Windfall’s coverage, which says it doesn’t enable MAID in its services, “given the incompatibility of Catholic instructing with actions supposed to terminate human life.”

Windfall does permits its sufferers to be assessed for MAID by an exterior practitioner, however sufferers should switch to a different facility to get MAID.

That switch on April 4, to St. John’s hospice run by Vancouver Coastal Well being, stripped O’Neill of the dignity MAID is meant to offer on the final day of her life, Bodrug mentioned.

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“For any person who’s on the level the place MAID is their solely possibility, transferring to a distinct facility will not be so simple as it sounds,” Bodrug mentioned.

O’Neill was in excruciating ache — her lumbar ribs had fractured, a side-effect of the osteoporosis attributable to the chemotherapy.

So she was medicated to unconsciousness earlier than being lifted onto a gurney and pushed by ambulance to St. John’s hospice. She didn’t regain consciousness once more earlier than she was given the life-ending treatment, Bodrug mentioned, so the switch robbed her of her last hours together with her dad and mom, siblings and pals.

“As a substitute of getting a goodbye, the place she might simply say goodbye to family and friends, she needed to get closely medicated to resist the ache of simply attending to the appointment,” her cousin mentioned.

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Particularly upsetting was when O’Neill arrived on the hospice, the gurney barely match into the room the place the process was to be carried out, resulting in a clumsy scene of paramedics and nurses pivoting the gurney a fraction at a time.

Bodrug mentioned O’Neill acquired distinctive care from the medical doctors and nurses in St. Paul’s palliative care ward and her frustration is solely with Windfall’s coverage.

Shaf Hussain, a spokesperson for Windfall, mentioned the company can not touch upon particular circumstances however “when there are such points that sufferers or households have, we work with them, soak up all suggestions to study from the experiences and attempt to enhance processes to make sure transfers happen in a well timed and secure method.”

Windfall mentioned that since medically assisted dying turned authorized in Canada in 2016, 402 of its sufferers have made formal requests for MAID and 131 have adopted by means of with a switch to different services.

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The B.C. Well being Ministry’s coverage on MAID acknowledges that not all medical doctors and nurse practitioners will present medical help in dying as a result of it might battle with their beliefs.

“If a physician or nurse practitioner doesn’t present medical help in dying as a matter of conscience, an individual can nonetheless anticipate to be handled with respect and be supplied with data on methods to entry this service,” the coverage says. “This implies health-care suppliers should not discriminate in opposition to individuals who make this request and should present an efficient switch of care in the event that they select to not supply that care themselves.”

Well being Minister Adrian Dix was not made out there for an interview this week. Requested throughout an unrelated press convention about whether or not he’s involved about Windfall Well being’s MAID coverage, Premier David Eby didn’t straight reply.

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“Finish of life points are among the most delicate and difficult points confronted by British Columbians. I can’t think about what that household was going by means of, dealing with somebody with a terminal most cancers analysis who they love,” he mentioned. “And it is a profoundly difficult subject to guarantee that we’re respecting dignity and guaranteeing that finish of life and palliative look after folks is delivered successfully in our province.”

Lengthy, of Dying with Dignity, mentioned all government-funded hospitals, care houses and hospices have an obligation to permit medical help in dying.

Lengthy mentioned she respects particular person clinicians’ proper to conscientious objection and they need to not have to offer MAID if it’s in opposition to their ethics.

“However we’re speaking a few hospital and hospitals don’t have conscientious rights,” she mentioned. The hospital ought to have a coverage that permits outdoors physicians to come back in and carry out MAID with out having to switch the affected person, she mentioned.

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The advocacy group doesn’t hold information on how typically persons are transferred from services that don’t carry out MAID however Lengthy mentioned “one pressured switch is just too many pressured transfers.”

“It’s only a horrible state of affairs to to place folks in when all they need to do is say goodbye and spend a couple of minutes with their family members.”

kderosa@postmedia.com

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