Euthanasia lobby is using Covid-19 crisis to pressure Canadian governments to force Catholic hospitals to do euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A lobby document by the Canadian Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers (CAMAP) uses the Covid-19 crisis to force faith based healthcare institutions to provide euthanasia.

According to CAMAP, hospitals are refusing to transfer patients during the Covid-19 crisis. Concerning MAiD at faith based health care facilities, the document states:

• Many faith-based facilities prohibit the provision of MAiD.
• The transfer of patients from some or all long-term care (LTC) facilities to acute care hospitals has been prohibited in some jurisdictions due to the risk of spreading COVID-19 infection. CAMAP recognizes that this is an established means of preventing the spread of disease. 
• A significant number of LTC facilities and many acute care hospitals are faith based and prohibit MAiD. Patients resident in these facilities have previously been transferred to other institutions that do not prohibit MAiD. When the institutions to which these faith-based facilities previously transferred patients prohibit transfer for reasons of public health these faith-based institutions should now allow MAiD provisions on-site. CAMAP believes that if necessary provincial governments should issue directives to all faith-based institutions requiring them to allow MAiD when the transfer of patients has been prohibited for reasons of public health.

CAMAP claims to only be pressuring governments to force faith based institutions to kill their patients during the Covid-19 crisis, but clearly, once the killing begins it will continue.

This is not the first time that the euthanasia lobby has pressured Canadian governments to force faith based healthcare institutions to provide euthanasia.

Last year, the euthanasia lobby pressured the Nova Scotia government to order St Martha's Hospital, which is the only hospital in Antigonish NS to provide euthanasia. The Nova Scotia government succumbed to the pressure and ordered St Martha's hospital, to provide euthanasia. In response, the Antigonish Health and Wellness Centre, which is not owned by St Martha's hospital, agreed to do euthanasia (death by lethal injection).

I stated that the euthanasia lobby failed to accomplish their goal, but they will continue to pressure faith based healthcare institutions to provide euthanasia on their premises. Faith based medical institutions must continue to say no.

The CAMAP lobby document also pressures Provincial governments to approve euthanasia assessments and approvals by telehealth/telemedicine. The document states:

All provinces should follow the example of British Columbia and some other 1 provinces and alter the requirements for the assessment of MAiD so that:

• both assessments may be provided using telemedicine;  

• if there is a provincial requirement to have a professional witness during a telemedicine assessment, this should be removed;

The American assisted suicide lobby claims that the recent changes to telehealth provisions in the US permit assisted suicide assessments and approvals by telehealth.

Approving euthanasia or assisted suicide by telehealth/telemedicine means that a person with difficult health issues who feels like a burden on others, or is experiencing depression or existential distress, could be assessed, approved and prescribed a lethal drug cocktail for assisted suicide by telehealth without being examined by a physician.

*Sign the petition: Healthcare regulations must not permit assisted suicide approvals by telehealth (Link).

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.

Media and euthanasia activist continue to pressure hospital to participate in euthanasia.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director - Euthanasia Prevention Coalition
 

The campaign to force St Martha's hospital to provide (MAiD) killing their patients continues.

An article by Brooklyn Connolly, published in the Coast newspaper, reports on a lecture by euthanasia activist academic Jocelyn Downie who is trying to force St. Martha's hospital into doing euthanasia. Connolly reports Downie as saying:

“We’ve got a problem here,”

“We don’t have the policy, we don’t have the program, we’ve got mistakes and we have the really pressing issue of St. Martha’s, and that’s weighing on the policy—and that matters.”

Jocelyn Downie

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.

Downie believes that access to Medical Assistance in Dying (euthanasia) transends the agreement that St Martha's Hospital has with the provincial government and Catholic Healthcare. Downie is pressuring the Nova Scotia government to force St Martha's hospital into doing euthanasia.

According to Connolly, Downie, long-time euthanasia activist, believes that it is unconstitutional for a Catholic hospital not to provide euthanasia. Connolly writes:

Downie believes that detaining access to this procedure is against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but it all comes down to what the policy will say.

“On the website, it says ‘St. Martha’s doesn’t provide MAiD,’ so [the province is] accepting that St. Martha’s is not allowing this, and I think they have responsibility for it and I think we could hold them accountable for that and I do think that violates the Charter,”

Downie targeted St. Martha's hospital as a first step in a campaign to force all religiously affiliated health care institutions into participating in euthanasia and assisted suicide.