Reader’s Digest Canada Pushes Euthanasia, Ignores Hospice

This article was published by National Review online on January 15, 2021.

By Wesley J Smith

The push is on in Canada to normalize euthanasia as the best way to die — to save money and emotional turmoil. How hard is the push? Reader’s Digest Canada — no less — has published a guide to end-of-life planning that pushes euthanasia and doesn’t even mention hospice.

The guide advises readers to “pick the right time” to die, i.e., be euthanized — euphemistically known as “medical assistance in dying” (MAID). From “The Ultimate Guide to End of Life Planning”:

A scheduled death can allow people to say goodbye in the way they want. According to Helen Long, a MAID is often like a celebration of life—except the guest of honour gets to be there. “A friend of my dad had a classic car, and he and his son went for one last drive around the neighbourhood,” she says. “Once a person makes a decision, it’s often a very freeing experience for them. It gives them back their control.”

The allusion is to “the guest of honour” is to euthanasia parties, where people attend to say goodbye and watch the patient be killed or — as happens in the U.S.A. — take poison pills. In my view, people who attend such gatherings validate suicide and are morally complicit in the death.

Suicide prevention? Ha! What’s that?

Meanwhile, the guide is notable for what it leaves out. As mentioned above, there is no discussion of the compassionate services available to terminally ill people and their families from hospice, such as pain control, chaplaincy, volunteers, home-care givers, and the like.

Nor is there any discussion about how to access pain and symptom control. Nor of how to overcome the existential fear and anxieties — such as worries about being a burden — that are the primary cause of people asking doctors to kill them, but which can be significantly ameliorated with the proper interventions.

When the Reader’s Digest Canada boosts killing — and gives extremely short shrift to caring — and indeed, leaves out the most important information fearful terminally ill patients and their families need to make proper decisions, you know the culture of death has gone mainstream.

Shame on the Reader’s Digest Canada.

Arizona assisted suicide House Bill 2254

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Arizona State Legislature

Assisted suicide bills have been introduced in Arizona every year since 2016. In 2021, HB 2254 was introduced by Representative Powers Hanley (D) who also sponsored assisted suicide bills in 2018, 2019 and 2020.

HB 2254 is similar to the original Oregon assisted suicide law.

Several states that legalized assisted suicide, such as Oregon, Washington State and Hawaii, are now expanding their assisted suicide laws. If HB 2254 passes the assisted suicide lobby will move to expand it in future years.

Links to important articles:

• Assisted suicide bills are not what they appear to be (Link).
  
• 12 myths about assisted suicide and Medical Aid in Dying (Link).
• Oregon 2019 assisted suicide report (Link).
• Washington State debates expansion of assisted suicide law (Link).
  

New York State to debate assisted suicide study bill.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Assembly member Kevin A Cahill (D) has introduced New York State Bill 198 on January 6, 2021. The purpose of Bill 198 is to require the commissioner of health to conduct a study on assisted suicide.

An assisted suicide study bill is not necessary unless someone wants to legalize assisted suicide.

Link to Bill 198.

An Act in relation to requiring the commissioner of health to conduct a study relating to medical aid in dying.

According to the bill the commissioner of health must submit the report including recommendations no later than December 31, 2022.

In May 1994, the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law published a 217 page report titled "When Death Is Sought: Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia in the Medical Context." The 1994 effectively explained why assisted suicide and euthanasia should not be legalized. Link to the report.

Assisted Suicide Is Bad Medicine. How Can Legislators Represent Us If They Cannot Talk to Us?

This was originally published by Not Dead Yet.

Press Release - Second Thoughts Connecticut

January 11, 2021 (Manchester, CT) – People with disabilities fear for their lives during the pandemic, and like everyone else must socially distance. At the same time, they are increasingly concerned that assisted suicide legislation—which they also see as a threat to their lives—will be introduced during the 2021 session.

In previous years, the grassroots disability rights group, Second Thoughts Connecticut, has launched an energetic protest against these dangerous bills. Members have started the session by leaving informational flyers for every member of the Connecticut General Assembly and the Governor. They have sponsored press conferences and held lobby days at the Capitol. Perhaps most importantly, they have met with legislators one-on-one or in small groups, and come out in force to participate in public hearings.

Things are very different during the pandemic.

With legislators primarily working from home, there is no opportunity to set up appointments at the Legislative Office Building or drop in to talk with legislators or their aides. In the past, aides’ names and email addresses were listed on the webpage of each legislator. Not this year. Legislators receive a huge amount of email, and without aides to help dig through it, not everything gets looked at or responded to.

Members of Second Thoughts Connecticut started contacting key legislators in early December with almost no response. To date, repeated requests to set up Zoom meetings with various legislators regarding the problems inherent in assisted suicide laws have been met with little or no response, and just one meeting has been scheduled.

Time is of the essence.

On Friday, January 15, the Public Health Committee will start identifying bills to bring to a public hearing. Yes, interested people may watch the proceedings on YouTube, but critical elements will be missing. There will be no opportunity to buttonhole legislators, or to show our concern by being present in the audience.

“How can our legislators represent us if they cannot talk to us?” asked Second Thoughts member Lisa Blumberg. “Access to our elected officials is how our democracy works.”

Cathy Ludlum of Second Thoughts Connecticut offered, “People form opinions about assisted suicide based on what they know. If they see it only as a civil right, and are never told about all the things that can go wrong—from misdiagnosis, incorrect or uncertain prognosis, coercion and abuse; to problems with the suicide drugs themselves—how can they make an informed decision?”

She added, “And this is a BIG decision. If assisted suicide passes, it will forever change the way healthcare is provided. At a time when we are already concerned about disparities in healthcare, it will adversely affect people’s lives, especially those of us who are already societally devalued.”

Second Thoughts Connecticut member Stephen Mendelsohn said, “Assisted suicide legislation codifies lethal disability discrimination into law. Some people will get suicide prevention and others suicide assistance, and the difference will be based on their disability status.”

Mendelsohn further explained, “Even the so-called safeguards of ‘six months,’ ‘terminally ill,’ ‘mentally competent,’ and ‘self-administer’ discriminate on the basis of disability and are vulnerable to court challenge. This would lead to expansion to widespread euthanasia. Assisted suicide would also conflict with the State of Connecticut Suicide Prevention Plan 2020-2025, which acknowledges the right of disabled people to equal suicide prevention services.”

Lisa Blumberg went on to say, “Assisted suicide is a very complex issue. Passions run high on both sides, as we saw by the 12-hour public hearings of previous years. This is not the time to make this decision because there is no way people can meet to fully discuss the ins and outs.” Second Thoughts Connecticut is a grassroots organization of people with disabilities and allies who oppose the legalization of physician-assisted suicide.

Contact:
Cathy Ludlum 860-649-7110 cathyludlum@cox.net
Stephen Mendelsohn 860-827-8003 (best after 5:30) smendelsohn5845@att.net

 

New Mexico legislature will once again debate an extreme assisted suicide bill.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Deborah Armstrong (D) who sponsored two previous New Mexico assisted suicide bills has once again sponsored an assisted suicide bill. House Bill 47, which is also known as the Elizabeth Whitefield End-of-Life Options Act, is her latest assisted suicide bill.

Armstrong's 2019 assisted suicide bill, HB 90, was the most extreme US assisted suicide bill that I had seen. Among other concerns, the bill allowed assisted suicide for psychiatric conditions, to be done to someone with an undefined "terminal prognosis," to be done by nurses and physician assistants, and it even allowed it to be approved via tele-medicine.

Similar to previous years, the New Mexico assisted suicide bill is wider than existing assisted suicide legislation.

Similar to HB 90, HB 47 expands who can approve and prescribe lethal drugs from physicians to "health care providers" that include physicians, or licensed physician assistants, or osteopathic physicians, or nurses registered in advanced practice.

Compared to existing assisted suicide legislation, HB 47 expands the list of who can approve and prescribe lethal drugs which not only increases the availability of assisted suicide but enables lesser trained health care providers to approve and prescribe assisted suicide.

HB 47 also expands the list of who may counsel a person, when a "health care provider" questions the ability of a person to consent. HB 47 permitted counselors to include: state-licensed psychiatrist, psychologist, master social worker, psychiatric nurse practitioner or professional clinical mental health counselor.

Unlike existing assisted suicide legislation, HB 47 does not require a 15 day waiting period but only requires a 48 hour waiting period that can be waived if the health care provider believes that the person may be imminently dying. Therefore HB 47 technically allows a same day death. A person could request assisted suicide on a "bad day" and die the same day. Studies prove that the “will to live” fluctuates.

Unlike existing assisted suicide legislation, HB 47 Section 3 (G) waives the requirement that a person's condition be confirmed by a second health care provider if the person requesting assisted suicide is enrolled in a hospice program.

The hospice provision is confirmed by assisted suicide promoter, Thaddeus Pope who stated:

the EWEOLOA does not require confirmation from a (second) consulting clinician if the prescribing clinician affirms that the individual is enrolled in a Medicare certified hospice program.

HB 47 tramples on the conscience rights of health care providers. The bill states that health care providers who are unwilling to carry out a request for assisted suicide shall inform the individual and refer the individual to a health care provider who is able and willing to carry out the individual's request or to another individual or entity to assist the requesting individual in seeking medical aid in dying.

Therefore a conscientious objector must participate in the act by referring the patient to a health care provider who is willing to prescribe lethal drugs.

Deborah Armstrong is intent on legalizing one of the widest assisted suicide bills for New Mexico.

HB 47 allows lesser trained health care providers to prescribe lethal drugs for the purpose of assisting a suicide, a life and death decision. The bill also allows a same day death and all based on "good faith" which is the lowest level of oversight.

For those who are organizing to stop assisted suicide in New Mexico I suggest the following: 

• Refer to assisted suicide, and stay away from politically motivated language. 
• Focus on how assisted suicide is done. The assisted suicide lobby is experimenting with new drug combinations as they attempt to find cheaper lethal drug cocktails.
• Assisted suicide bills are not what they appear to be. Focus on what the bill actually says, rather than focusing on the theory of assisted suicide. 
• In 2020, several of the assisted suicide bills permitted euthanasia or used undefined language enabling the legislation to be interpreted in a wider manner, while other bills ignored conscience rights for medical professionals.

Defeating assisted suicide bills requires a complete analysis of the bill, outlining the problems with the bill. All of these bills are designed to expand over time.

Emphasize what assisted suicide is and how it is done and discuss how the assisted suicide lobby is conducting unethical lethal drug experiments. They speak about compassion and choices and yet they have caused some horrific deaths.

Work together. All perspectives are important, but stay focused on your goal, that being, protecting people from assisted suicide.

Bill HB 47 must be defeated.

Washington State debates bill (HB1141) to expand assisted suicide law. Say No to Same Day Death.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

Washington State legalized assisted suicide in 2009 after an assisted suicide initiative passed during the 2008 election.

Last year, the Washington State legislature debated "study Bill 2419" to examine the elimination of "safeguards" in assisted suicide laws. Bill 2419 passed but it was vetoed by the Governor who was trying to control the 2020 budget. (Link to article on Bill 2419).

In 2021, House Bill HB 1141 is being introduced, not to study, but to expand the assisted suicide law in Washington state. HB 1141 is being sponsored by Representatives Nicole Macri (D) and Skyler Rude (R).

HB 1141 will expand the assisted suicide law by:

• Expanding the list of who can prescribe lethal drugs by changing the requirement from physicians to "qualified medical provider." A "qualified medical provider" is defined as a physician, or a licensed physician assistant, or a osteopathic physician, or and advanced registered nurse practitioner.
• Expanding the list of who is legally able to counsel a person, when the qualified medical provider questions the ability of the person to consent. Those who are permitted to offer counseling include: a state licensed psychiatrist or, psychologist, independent clinical social worker, advanced social worker, mental health counselor, or psychiatric advanced registered nurse practitioner.
• Eliminating the 15 day waiting period within the law and replaces it with a 72 hour waiting period before the second request is made. The 72 hour request period can be rescinded if the qualified medical provider believes that the person may be imminently dying.
• Allowing the lethal prescription to be delivered to the person, rather than requiring the lethal drugs to be accessed by the person who is approved to die or the physician.

HB 1141 expands the assisted suicide law by eliminating the waiting period, making it possible for a same day death. A person can request and potentially receive lethal drugs on the same day. Studies prove that a person's will to live will fluctuate. Your bad day becomes your last day.

The bill also expands who can prescribe the lethal drugs from physicians to "qualified medical provider," that includes physician assistants and registered nurse practitioners. Expanding the list of who can approve and prescribe lethal drugs not only increases the availability of assisted suicide but it also enables lesser trained medical providers to specialize as "assisted suicide providers."

Last year, study Bill 2419, that was sponsored by the same Representatives, (Section F) of the Bill sought to study the need to self-administer the lethal drugs. Removing the requirement of self-administration would mean that someone else would be allowed to administer. This would change the law from permitting assisted suicide to permitting euthanasia. Euthanasia is when someone else administers the lethal drugs. Euthanasia is a form of homicide.

HB 1141 does not change the requirement of self-administering but the intention of the bills author is to allow euthanasia.

As I have always stated, once we legalize prescribing suicide by lethal drugs, the prohibition on killing has now been crossed. The only remaining question is the rules that are established to kill.

MAiD Muscles into the Delta Hospice.

This article was published by Convivium on January 8, 2021

Peter Stockland

By Peter Stockland

You might think the middle of a global pandemic is less than an ideal time to disrupt the operations of a hospice where palliative care patients receive comfort as they approach death.

If so, you would not share the apparent thinking of the B.C. government or its local Fraser Health Authority, which as of today has forced layoffs of staff at the Irene Thomas Hospice in suburban Vancouver. The dismissals are part of the eviction of the Delta Hospice Society that oversees the facility.

In a conversation yesterday, DHS board President Angelina Ireland confirmed for me that the pink slips were to be given out this morning because the Society refuses to administer Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) on its premises. As of February 24, the DHS will have to relinquish the palliative care centre that it raised $9 million a decade ago to construct on Fraser Health Authority land. Its 35-year lease on the property will be nullified, and its other assets expropriated, Ireland says.

Irene Thomas hospice

She is adamant the takeover has nothing to do with the hospice Society wanting to prolong the debate over whether MAiD should or should not be legal in Canada. It accepts the 2016 change to the Criminal Code that legalized the administration of toxic injections by health care professionals intent on ending the lives of patients. But DHS’ own legally-registered constitution bars it from administering MAiD in the 10-bed Irene Thomas centre. And nothing in the law requires a change to that constitution because nothing obliges the provision of MAiD anywhere, anytime for anyone who requests it.

As Ireland points out, MAiD is readily available for all who seek it at a hospital barely 100 yards from the Irene Thomas Hospice. The centre has also accommodated MAiD-seeking patients by transferring them home or to the hospital. Of the approximately 1000 palliative patients who’ve been cared for at the facility over the past decade, “three or four” have asked to be administered MAiD, she says.

“This is not a debate about MAiD,” Ireland insists. “This is about the B.C. government destroying a sanctuary for dying patients who want the choice to stay in a facility where MAiD is not offered. They now find their rights to equal choice being revoked. They are being disenfranchised by the very system they pay for.”

At the very least, it seems to be about an ideology flourishing within governmental circles (provincial and federal) as well as in the minds of many MAiD proponents that giving fatal substances to the dying must be established as an always and everywhere practice in Canada. We have universal health care. We now need universally directed death.

Certainly, following the trail of tears that has led to the Delta Hospice Society’s eviction gives credence to that suspicion. The Society was founded 30 years ago to provide end-of-life care, and since that time has been hailed as an exemplary organization for its adherence to palliative principles. But in 2017, following the federal legislative change nine months earlier, an edict went out from the B.C. government ordering all palliative and hospice centres excepting those that are faith-based, to provide MAiD.

Pushback was substantial. In the case of DHS, it met with officials from the local Fraser Health Authority and explained its constitutional predicament: its bylaws banned MAiD and to adhere to the government order would put it in violation of its standing under the provincial Society’s Act. The issue seems to have been quietly moved to the backburner by a wise and deft health bureaucrat.

That state of equilibrium-preserving inaction prevailed until 2019 when agitation by local MAiD activists coincided with a change in the bureaucracy. The result was a comply-or-else order, which DHS countered by offering to forego half its publicly funded operating capital – $750,000 – in order to be considered a private palliative facility. Doing so, it believed, would relieve it of the purported obligation to provide MAiD.

The offer did not even get the courtesy of a reply. Instead, DHS was served with a one-year notice of eviction for allegedly having breached its service contract with the local health authority. Months of court action followed until, immediately before Christmas, the eviction notice was reinforced with an order that the Society vacate its building and cease overseeing the Irene Thomas Centre by the end of February.

Today, no one seems to know exactly what will happen to those being laid off. There is talk of an orderly transition to a facility where MAiD will be on tap 24/7. We have, of course, learned a great deal from the COVID pandemic about government and bureaucratic understanding of orderly transition. Apparently, the employees will just have to trust.

And in the midst of that pandemic, political, bureaucratic and activist advocates of MAiD ubiquity will have forced a small suburban palliative care centre to bend to their will. Even as COVID death rates soar, the dream of having a sanctuary for authentic palliation will have died.

As Nancy Macey, Delta Hospice Society founder and former Irene Thomas executive director puts it almost wistfully: “The Society has done all it can to have discussions with Fraser Health. It has done all it can to follow its service agreement and the required legislation.”

You might think in Canada that would be enough. Think again.

Charles Lewis: A smile said it all.

By Charles Lewis

This is about a single newspaper photograph. The Canadian Press took it on Dec. 10 on the day the House of Commons passed Bill C-7, which expands euthanasia to include more victims.

The bill has yet to pass the Senate, and the federal government was given a two-month extension on its deadline to do so on Dec. 17 by a Quebec Superior Court judge. But the gist of it is that dying is no longer a requirement. What is deemed to be suffering, a subjective notion, will be enough to get a lethal dose of poison. It will also allow those who are suffering and also have mental illness to be included.

*Article: Euthanasia Bill C-7 is delayed by the Senate until February 2021 (Link).

I saw the photo in question in the National Post over breakfast. I felt like retching, so offensive did I find it. It was truly obscene.

The picture showed federal Justice Minister David Lametti, grinning and giving himself a big thumbs-up after the passage of Bill C-7.

Why was Lametti smiling? What was there to be happy about? Why are some of his Liberal colleagues seen applauding as if they just watched a clever magician?

The photo told me everything I needed to know about the culture of death our federal government is promoting. It confirmed for me how easily Canadians are fooled in the name of secular progress and how cheap life is becoming.

Last year I met someone who was involved in writing the original euthanasia legislation that was passed in June 2016. I was not thrilled by what he had done and let him know it. But what he said was worth noting. He believed that certain Canadians, those dying and in pain, should have the right to die. Then he added this: Every time euthanasia is used it is a failure.

This was not the last time I heard this sentiment expressed. I have spoken to palliative physicians who have said much the same thing: euthanasia is a failure of our health-care system.

The government was pressured by some to allow for mental illness alone as the sole issue but Lametti decided to wait on that … for now.

On Nov 24, as reported in the National Post, the justice minister assured Canadians it will happen:

“Lametti also said he hopes the medical assistance in dying (MAiD) regime will eventually be further expanded to people who are suffering solely from mental illness, but the government doesn’t have enough time to do it before a court-ordered deadline of Dec. 18 for this bill to pass.”

He added that a study would be launched soon.

There are already those who believe that denying mental illness as the sole reason for euthanasia is unconstitutional. They say that with proper safeguards killing the mentally ill could work.

Safeguards? Like what? Making sure the person who is mentally ill is actually of sound mine? Who will decide this?

A fundamental tenet of the original 2016 bill was that the person requesting death must be capable of making such a grave decision and whose death is reasonably foreseeable. Those promises have gone up in smoke.

There are some who say I am being extreme when I compare what is happening in Canada today to Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. But this is not hyperbole.

To be clear, I am not saying the members of this government or Lametti are Nazis or Nazi sympathizers.

However, in the 20th century it was the Nazis who made euthanasia a significant part of its way of governing. They billed it as ending unnecessary suffering of the patient as well as ending the burden on the family who must take care of such a person.

Of course, the Nazi euthanasia program eventually expanded to all kinds of people who were not considered “whole.” Little children were often murdered for having birth defects or handicaps.

No, we are not in Nazi Germany but in many ways we are emulating those policies. And that is a disgrace.

Now the worst part of all: We let this happen. Not just secular society but religious society too. We were too passive and we are now seeing the fruits of that passivity.

So now ask yourselves: Are you OK with killing the mentally ill? The government said it would soon study the killing of teens. Are you OK with that, too?

If not, then for God’s sake do something. Not tomorrow — now. Let your MPs know. Let the prime minister know. Let your priest and those in your parish. Let your neighbours know and your relatives and friends. Get angry.

Stop hiding your heads in the sand. It is killing us.

This article was published by the Catholic Register on December 24, 2020.

Angelina Ireland statement concerning Delta Hospice Society layoffs and eviction.

My name is Angelina Ireland. I am the President of the Board of the Delta Hospice Society.

I came to the Society 7 years ago as a cancer patient and utilized the support services offered by the Society. I was very fortunate to recover to good health. I am like every other person involved in the Delta Hospice Society. We give it our heart, our time and our energy. Some of the friends I met in treatment did not recover and ended up passing away inside of this hospice. It is for people like them - who came before us and those that will come after us - that we have fought for the past 12 months to keep euthanasia out of this hospice.

Today the Delta Hospice Society has been forced to issue layoff notices to our clinical staff prior to us being pushed out of our own Hospice. We must inform them that we will no longer be their employer effective Feb. 24, 2021.

The board of DHS deeply regrets being compelled to take this action. Tragically, we have been left no other choice due to the cancellation of our service agreement and our 35-year lease, having 25 years remaining, with the Fraser Health Authority. We are about to be evicted and approximately $15 million in assets expropriated simply because we decline to provide Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) at our 10-bed Irene Thomas Hospice in Ladner, British Columbia.

To be absolutely clear, we are not opposing the provision of MAiD in the B.C. health care system. We accept that MAiD is a legal service across Canada. However, nothing in Canadian law requires medically assisted death to be made available everywhere, any time, to everyone. The Constitution of our Society and our commitment to palliative care bars us from offering it. Neither the board of the DHS, the vast majority of our patients and members want to change that.

This is not a debate about MAiD. A person who wants MAiD can have it at the hospital next door to us. This is about the B.C. government destroying a sanctuary for dying patients who want the choice to stay in a facility where MAiD is not offered. They now find their rights to equal choice and representation revoked. They are being disenfranchised by the very system they pay for.

We at the DHS are committed to protecting the right to a sanctuary for equal choice at the end of life. We offered to forego $750,000 in public funding last February in order to operate as an authentic palliative care centre. The Fraser Health Authority rejected the proposal without negotiation. Instead it served us with what amounts to a one-year notice of eviction.

The Society has done all it can to have discussions with Fraser Health and provide creative solutions. It has done all it can to follow its service agreement and required legislation. Fraser Health has made no attempt to remedy the breach in the 30-year relationship with our Society.

We have always been recognized for our exemplary care. We ask journalists, legislators and the Canadian people to recognize and demand sanctuaries for the dying. Places where people can feel safe in their final days, where MAiD will not be suggested to them, where MAiD will not be administered to them and where their freedom as a citizen of this country is respected.

Today we call for “Hospice Sanctuary”.

Thank you

Alex Schadenberg. In support of the Delta Hospice Society.

Comments by Alex Schadenberg, Executive Director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition in support of the Delta Hospice Society.

The situation with the Delta Hospice Society is a problem.

When Canada legalized euthanasia in June 2016, nothing in the law required every publicly funded medical facility to provide (MAiD) euthanasia and assisted suicide. It was the (British Columbia) BC government that established this policy. This policy does not exist throughout Canada.

I very clearly see that the BC government policy discriminates against people that want to be cared for in a euthanasia-free environment.

For instance, the Delta Hospice operates the Irene Thomas hospice which is located literally across the street from the local hospital. So this isn't an issue of denying people the legal option, or anything like that, this is a situation where they (BC government) is pressuring or forcing every institution to do as their policy dictates.

People who want to receive excellent care and die a natural death, without fear of being urged to consider euthanasia have been able to go to the Delta Hospice Society, Irene Thomas hospice. But after February 24, there will be no safe space in the Delta Hospice region. It will be gone.

I want to tell you also, that as the Executive Director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition we have received many phone calls from people who are concerned when they are receiving medical care or a family member is receiving medical care, and they have said my mother, my brother, my friend, felt pressured to ask for euthanasia. So if your thinking that this is something that doesn't happen, that fact is this has been happening. Many people are concerned about his pressure upon them, especially in their time of need.

We must also consider the fact that we are human. What makes us human is the fact that we have emotions, that we are effected by our situation. So therefore I have a great concern for people who oppose euthanasia but at their time of need sometimes they become very depressed, they are human. They experience deep transient feelings of hopelessness or despair and they might request euthanasia, not because they are seeking it, but because they have become so darkened, they have gone to this dark place in their life. This is what some people experience.

We need a safe place to die. I need a safe place to die.

This concern recognizes the humanity of the person because we all experience these times, to different degrees, when we feel that our life lacks purpose, our life lacks value or meaning, and yet we know that time and good community care, like the Delta Hospice can provide, that we can die a natural death, properly cared for.

So we need safe places. This is what we need. We need places like the Delta Hospice Society.

The Delta Hospice Society is worth fighting for, and what the BC government is doing is discrimination.

Media Release: Delta Hospice Society - Layoffs and Eviction.

Members of the media are urged to view the attached video link that explains why the Delta Hospice Society has been forced to issue layoff notices to all clinical staff prior to our role concluding inside our Hospice effective Feb. 25, 2021. 

Link to the Press release (Link). Link to the youtube message: (Link).

The board of DHS deeply regrets being compelled to take this action. Tragically, as the video and the attached background document make clear, we have been left no other choice due to the Fraser Health Authority canceling our service agreement and 35-year lease. Fraser Health is about to evict us and expropriate approximately $15 million of our assets simply because we decline to euthanize our patients at our 10-bed Irene Thomas Hospice in Ladner, B.C.

To be clear, we accept that the provision of MAiD is an elective, legal service across Canada. Nothing in Canadian law, however, requires medically assisted death to be made available everywhere, at all times, to everyone. The Constitution of our private Society and our commitment to palliative care, bars us from offering it. Neither the board of the DHS, nor the vast majority of our patients and members want to change that.

“This is not a debate about MAiD,” says board President Angelina Ireland. “A person who wants MAiD can have it at the hospital right next door to us. This is about the B.C. government destroying a sanctuary for dying patients who want the choice to stay in a palliative care facility where MAiD is not offered. They now find their rights to equal choice being revoked. They are being disenfranchised by the very system they pay for."

Ireland notes the DHS has been so committed to protecting the right to a sanctuary for the dying that it offered to forego $750,000 in public funding last February in order to operate as an authentic palliative care centre. The Fraser Health Authority rejected the proposal without negotiation. Instead, it served DHS with a one-year notice of eviction with the intent to expropriate its assets.

“The Society has done all it can to have discussions with Fraser Health about the conflict with its Constitution. It has done all it can to follow its service agreement and required legislation. Fraser Health has made no attempt to understand the 30-year relationship with the Society, which has always been recognized for its exemplary care,” says founder and former Executive Director Nancy Macey.

Journalists and the Canadian public at large are urged to recognize where that approach has led: working notice slips for dedicated palliative care employees, and the destruction of a sanctuary for the dying. The Society is dedicated to the future of palliative care and is continuing with its supportive care services such as: bereavement counseling, vigils, spiritual care, volunteer coordination, education, social work and the many other ways it provides care directly to the community.

To arrange interviews, please contact:
Angelina Ireland, President Delta Hospice Society Board,
778-512-8088
irelandangelina@gmail.com

The Delta Hospice Society continues to fight for safe places to die, even as the BC government moves to shut it down.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

The Delta Hospice Society continues to oppose MAiD (euthanasia and assisted suicide) being done within the confines of their Hospice, even as the British Columbia (BC) government ordered them to permit MAiD or lose their government funding. 

On February 24, 2021 the Delta Hospice will, in effect, be defunded by the BC Ministry of Health the Irene Thomas Hospice, that is operated by the Delta Hospice Society will essentially be expropriated by the Fraser Health authority.

In February 2018 the Board of the Delta Hospice Society was given an edict from Fraser Health to provide euthanasia (MAiD). At that time, the board of the Delta Hospice did not comply with the edict and continued its good work.

In December 2019, the Delta Hospice was ordered to provide euthanasia or lose government funding. The Delta Hospice refused to crumble under pressure from the government.

In February 2020, Adrian Dix, BC Minister of Health, gave notice that funding for the Delta Hospice would cease on February 24, 2021 unless the Delta Hospice changed their position and permitted euthanasia. The Delta Hospice refused.

The BC government continued there attack on the Delta Hospice Society even after the Canadian Hospice Palliative Care Association and the Canadian Society of Palliative Care Physicians stated that: Euthanasia is not consistent with the philosophy, intent or approach of hospice palliative care.

* Sign the petition: Hospice organizations must NOT be forced to do euthanasia (Link).

The Delta Hospice Society is fighting for you.

Canada legalized euthanasia in June 2016 by passing Bill C-14. Bill C-14 did not require every publicly funded medical facility to provide euthanasia, it was the British Columbia provincial government that established a policy that all publicly funded medical facilities, except for those that are religiously affiliated, must permit MAiD, euthanasia and assisted suicide, on their premises. 

Irene Thomas Hospice

The BC government policy discriminates against people who want to be cared for in a euthanasia-free environment. The Delta Hospice Society operates the Irene Thomas Hospice which is located across the street from the local hospital. The local hospital provides euthanasia. People can die by lethal injection at the local hospital.

People who want to receive excellent care and die a natural death, without fear of being urged to consider euthanasia have been able to go to the Irene Thomas Hospice, but after February 24, there will be no safe space in Delta BC.

I am concerned for the many people who don't want euthanasia, but at their time of need have become so depressed or are experience deep transient feelings of hopelessness or despair that they request death by euthanasia. Some of these people are asked if they want euthanasia, while they are at their lowest time emotionally. These people need a safe place to die. A place where they will receive excellent care but not lethal injection.

This concern recognizes the humanity of the person. We all experience times when we feel that our life lacks purpose, meaning or value and yet we know that, with time, support and good community care, our deep dark time may pass.

We need safe places. This is what the Delta Hospice Society has been fighting for, this is a battle that effects everyone.