St. Martha's Catholic hospital will not provide euthanasia on-site.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Last week I wrote that a campaign by Jocelyn Downie, the academic euthanasia activist at Dalhousie University, has resulted in St. Martha's hospital in Antigonish NS being forced to provide MAiD (euthanasia) within the Catholic hospital.

Catholic hospital is forced to provide MAiD (euthanasia) in Nova Scotia (Link).

Yesterday I received the press release from St Martha's hospital explaining that MAiD (better known as euthanasia) will not be provided by St. Martha's hospital but at the Antigonish Health and Wellness Centre.

The Sisters of St. Martha, state in their media release:

...The Nova Scotia Health Authority has assured us that Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) will not take place in St. Martha's Regional Hospital.

We do not own St. Martha's Regional Hospital or the building called the Antigonish Health and Wellness Centre.

We continue to uphold the Mission and Values of St. Martha's Regional Hospital for quality compassionate health care. ...

Therefore Downie has not achieved her goal of imposing euthanasia (MAiD) upon a Catholic hospital. Downie will continue to pressure religiously affiliated healthcare institutions to provide euthanasia. Downie stated in The Global News article from last week:

“Governments and health authorities have failed to insist that faith-influenced, publicly funded institutions permit MAiD within their walls,” she said. 

The battle has only just begun.

Downie began her campaign, in December 2018, to force St Martha's hospital into doing euthanasia with an article in the Chronicle Herald.

In late December, Canada's national broadcaster, CBC news, featured a program designed to pressure St Martha's hospital to euthanize their patients.
 
The most recent news articles confirm what I originally stated, that Downie targeted St. Martha's hospital as a first step in a campaign to force all religiously affiliated health care institutions into participating in MAiD.
 
The euthanasia lobby will continue to pressure religiously based healthcare institutions to provide euthanasia on their premises. Religiously based medical institutions must continue to say NO.

I urge religiously based healthcare institutions to maintain their ethics and refuse to provide euthanasia.

Catholic hospital is forced to provide MAiD (euthanasia) in Nova Scotia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A campaign by Jocelyn Downie, the academic euthanasia activist at Dalhousie University, has resulted in St. Martha's hospital in Antigonish NS being forced to provide MAiD (euthanasia) within the Catholic hospital.

An article by Ross Lord and Alexander Quon, for Global News reported that the Nova Scotia Health Authority said:

“Assessments and provision of MAiD [medical assistance in dying] will be available in a section of St. Martha’s Regional Hospital complex at the Antigonish Health and Wellness Centre.”

The Global News article stated that the euthanasia lobby sees the St. Martha's hospital policy as the first of many euthanasia policies that they intend to impose upon Catholic or religious healthcare institutions. The article reports:

“We hope that this is the start and that Nova Scotia’s regulation, Nova Scotia’s position will be used as a model in other jurisdictions across the country. We’re certainly pushing for that,” said Jim Cowan, chair of Dying with Dignity.

Jocelyn Downie

Jocelyn Downie plans to pressure religiously affiliated healthcare institutions to provide euthanasia. The Global News article states:

“Governments and health authorities have failed to insist that faith-influenced, publicly funded institutions permit MAiD within their walls,” she said.

The reason that the euthanasia lobby focused on St. Martha's hospital is that the sisters had signed an agreement in 1996 where the hospital would maintain Catholic beliefs but be administered by a secular board. St. Martha's was considered an easier target. 

There are dozens of other Catholic hospitals and nursing homes across Canada that forbid medically assisted dying, forcing some assisted dying applicants to sign request forms off-site.

In December, Downie began her campaign to force St Martha's hospital into doing euthanasia with an article in the Chronicle Herald.

In late December, Canada's national broadcaster, CBC news, featured a program pressuring St Martha's hospital to euthanize their patients.

The most recent news article confirms what I stated, last December, that Downie targeted St. Martha's hospital as a first step in a campaign to force all religiously affiliated health care institutions into participating in MAiD.

The euthanasia lobby will now challenge other religiously based healthcare institutions. Religiously based medical institutions need to stand up and say NO. Sadly, Catholic hospitals in Canada already agreed to provide euthanasia assessments, on site. Euthanasia assessments are part of the requirement of the law for approving euthanasia. Therefore Catholic hospitals have already agreed to be directly complicit with MAiD in Canada.

I urge religious healthcare institutions to maintain their ethics and refuse to provide euthanasia.

Nova Scotia Catholic hospital facing more pressure to permit euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

St Martha's Hospital Antigonish.

On December 18 I wrote an article about how, Jocelyn Downie, a long-time euthanasia activist is pressuring St. Martha's Hospital in Antigonish to participate in euthanasia. The story has not subsided.

Yesterday CBC, Canada's publicly funded national media, published a pro-euthanasia article by Frances Willick titled:  Ban on Assisted Dying at St. Martha's hospital should end. Willick, one again interviews Downie, and to create balance she interviews the leader of Canada's euthanasia lobby.

The CBC interview quotes Downie as saying:

Dalhousie law professor Jocelyn Downie says the hospital's refusal to provide medical assistance in dying — and the Health Department's and Nova Scotia Health Authority's implicit support of that policy — would not stand up to a court challenge. 

It also puts vulnerable patients at risk of even greater suffering or losing capacity to consent to MAID if they are forced to be transferred to another location, she said.

"I just think it's indefensible to have a publicly funded institution have a faith-based filter on the services that are available," said Downie, who is also an Order of Canada recipient.

Downie's wants the province to legislate St. Martha's to participate in killing (euthanasia) its patients. Downie is quoted by the CBC:

She said the province could simply pass legislation requiring the hospital to offer MAID, or the Nova Scotia Health Authority could choose not to renew the mission assurance agreement. 

But Downie said her preferred solution would be to have MAID provided at St. Martha's unless a patient can be moved to another location without extra suffering or endangering their capacity to consent.

St. Martha's hospital is the current target but the main target are religiously affiliated medical institutions. 

Shanaaz Gokool, the CEO of Dying With Dignity stated to CBC that the issue is much bigger. Dying With Dignity wants all religiously affiliated medical institutions to be forced to participate in assisted dying (euthanasia). Gokool said:

"It is just a matter of time before a case comes to court." 

Dying with Dignity Canada is exploring all political and legal solutions to the problem.

Dr Amy Hendricks (right)

A few days ago, the Chronicle Herald published an article by Dr Amy Hendricks, a physician at St. Martha's hospital who is not Catholic. Hendricks wrote that the values at St. Martha's hospital have created an excellent level of patient care, and these values need to be preserved.

What I have found at St. Martha’s is a unique medical culture that values individuals — whether staff, patients, or families — not because it is a policy of the NSHA, but because this is who we are. 

The heritage that the Sisters cultivated for over 100 years — of service, excellence and particular love for vulnerable people — is perhaps one reason why so many family physicians still come to see their patients in the ICU, why we don’t have patients on stretchers lining the ER hallways, why my department has the safest signover practice I’ve seen. 

I don’t believe that forcing euthanasia within St. Martha’s, by severing our staff from our heritage and mission, could have any beneficial effect on the patients we serve.

St Martha's hospital was likely chosen by the euthanasia lobby because it is a smaller hospital, serving a smaller region, within a smaller province in Canada. 

Downie and Dying With Dignity want to force St. Martha's to participate in euthanasia as a stepping stone toward their goal of forcing all religiously affiliated hospitals and hospices to participate in killing their patients.

Euthanasia activist pressuring Catholic Hospital to permit euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Saint Martha's Hospital in Antigonish

Jocelyn Downie, the long-time euthanasia activist and academic is now turning her attention to forcing Saint Martha's Regional Hospital in Antigonish Nova Scotia and the Sisters of St Martha to permit euthanasia.

Saint Martha's Hospital is known for excellence in palliative care.

Downie believes that access to Medical Assistance in Dying (euthanasia) transends Catholic Healthcare and the agreement that St Martha's Hospital have with the provincial government. Downie argues in an article that was published in The Chronicle Herald on December 17 that:

the current approach allowing forced transfers violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Nova Scotia Human Rights Act.

Fortunately, there are at least three solutions. First, the Sisters Antigonish could agree to a compromise policy that would permit St. Martha’s to refuse to allow assessment or provision of MAiD within its walls (by non-objecting providers from outside the hospital), but only if the patient can be transferred to another location without undue harm or delay as determined by the Nova Scotia MAiD program.

Second, if the Sisters will not agree to this compromise, the Nova Scotia government could legislate it. Institutions that receive provincial funding would then be required to allow the assessment and provision of MAiD on their premises when the patient cannot be transferred to another location without undue harm or delay.

Third, alternatively, the NSHA could simply not renew the 1996 agreement. Going this route, the NSHA could cease to be bound by it as early as Sept. 28, 2019. Then MAiD assessment and provision would be available without compromise within what would presumably be a renamed secular hospital.

Downie has for years sold herself as a "neutral" academic, but for those who are involved in the issue of euthanasia she is recognized as a long-time euthanasia activist. 

Downie has had several successes, such as convincing the Ontario College of Physicians to accept a policy that disregards the conscience rights of Ontario physicians, she was instrumental in the writing of the Carter decision by Justice Smith and she had her hand in the Supreme Court of Canada decision.


If you read the articles about Downie you will notice that promoting euthanasia has been her life-long work.

• Ontario government euthanasia report seeks to protect physicians but not patients.
• More quasi academic reports from Jocelyn Downie.
• Royal Society of Canada one-sided euthanasia report.

Hopefully the Nova Scotia government will recognize Downie as being a euthanasia activist and ignore her pressure tactics oriented to eliminating Catholic Healthcare in Canada. 

It is Downie's goal to use St. Martha's Hospital as a stepping stone to forcing all Catholic Healthcare institutions in Canada to permit euthanasia on their premises.

Canadian Doctors Abject Surrender to Euthanasia

This article was published by Wesley Smith on his blog on January 17, 2016.

Wesley Smith

By Wesley Smith

The complete and abject acquiescence of the Canadian medical establishment to their Supreme Court’s order transforming doctors from healers into killers is both disheartening and astonishing. 

One of the most radical transformations in the role of the doctor in medical history is moving forward with such enthusiasm, that doctors appear to be on the verge of allowing patients to tell them when a diagnosable medical condition is “grievous” and “irremediable,”–meaning that even if re-mediating treatment is available and the patient doesn’t want it, they can be killed. 

And all doctors will have to be complicit–either by doing the deed or being a death doctor pimp by finding one who they know will. 

Look at what the head of Nova Scotia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons has to say about that. From the Herald News story: 

Grant said a grievous and irremediable medical condition is subjective and “viewed through the lens of the patient.”  “It is the patient’s subjective experience that determines whether the condition is grievous,” he said. “It is the patient’s subjective decision as to whether the condition is irremediable to treatments that the patient would be willing to go through.”  

He acknowledged that this is an area of great uncertainty for doctors. “These are words that we don’t use very often in medicine — grievous and irremediable — and we’re now being tasked to participate in a decision of enormous consequence that hinges on those words.”  

While no doctor can be compelled to assist in a patient’s death, the draft document says an effort should be made to refer a patient to a willing doctor. 

During World War II, the Nazi occupiers tried to force Netherlander physicians to become death doctors and participate in that country’s euthanasia policies. Those courageous doctors refused and engaged in total noncooperation. Some were sent to concentration camps, from whence some did not return. But the peaceful civil disobedience won the day–against Nazis! 

What would those heroes think of the Canadian medical establishment? Disgusted and ashamed.