The B.C. government has negotiated a workaround to offer medical assistance in dying (MAiD) at one of Vancouver’s key hospitals.
St. Paul’s Hospital, which is operated by the Catholic organization Providence Health, refuses to offer MAiD due to faith-based objections.
That practice made headlines last summer, when a terminal patient was forced to be transferred out of the hospital in order to access the end-of-life procedure. At the time, Samantha O’Neill’s family told Postmedia the transfer left her in pain and robbed them of their final hours with her.
On Wednesday, B.C.’s Ministry of Health said a new facility offering specialized end-of-life care will be built adjacent and connected to St. Paul’s, but operated by Vancouver Coastal Health.
“It will be a very good space, a very nice space, the kind of space we’ve had that really works well for us in hospice care and I think it puts the patients first,” Health Minister Adrian Dix told Global News.
Despite receiving public funding, faith-based health-care organizations are not legally required to offer MAiD services at their facilities. They are, however, required to work with regional health authorities to ensure patients who want it can access it.
Dix said the new clinical space will be a pre-fabricated but “permanent” facility, and will appear to patients “as if it was part of the hospital.”
The new facility will be staffed by Vancouver Coastal Health employees. Patients will be discharged from St. Paul’s and when they are transferred to the clinical space.
Dix said the new facility will be operational by August 2024.
He said the province was still working on a similar solution for when St. Paul’s Hospital moves to its new location on the False Creek Flats in 2026.