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A Canadian family is suing a Catholic hospital for refusing to kill their daughter. The hospital, St. Paul’s, is a Catholic run facility that does not permit the administering of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) and had to transfer the patient to a different location for the procedure. Now the family of the patient is seeking to challenge the rights of Catholic hospitals in Canada to recuse themselves from treatments that go contrary to the Catholic faith.
The patient, Sam O’Neill, was diagnosed with stage 4 cervical cancer in 2022, a condition doctors deemed terminal. She chose St. Paul’s for treatment, because of its close proximity to her home, although CTV notes that the lawsuit claims she had no choice in the location where she was treated. As the cancer progressed, it became clear that treatment would not be effective, and she began to seek MAiD.
The lawsuit
St. Paul’s, however, is run by Providence Health Care, a Catholic organization that opposes MAiD. Instead, she was sedated and transferred to a Vancouver hospice that would put her to death, but she was unable to be awoken for her final goodbyes with her parents. It was this missed goodbye, along with the transfer, that prompted her parents, Jim and Gaye, to launch the lawsuit. It reads:
"Although Ms. O’Neill was ultimately provided with access to MAiD, the circumstances surrounding the forced transfer and Ms. O’Neill’s access to MAiD caused and exacerbated Ms. O’Neill’s egregious physical and psychological suffering, and denied her a dignified death, including the ability to say goodbye to her family and loved ones."
Sam’s parents went on to say that the lawsuit is not about compensation, but to make sure this does not happen to anyone else. They are joined in the lawsuit by Sam’s physician, Dr. Jayaraman, who has since resigned her post due to being unable to administer MAiD at St. Paul’s.
In comments to CTV News, Dr. Jayaraman noted that she has “been prevented by the religious beliefs of this institution which I don’t share,” although she neglected to mention why she even sought employment with a Catholic hospital to begin with.
While the lawsuit describes MAiD deaths as “dignified,” Live Action points out that this is a common misconception, as patients of MAiD could find themselves slowly drowning while in a paralyzed state. Live Action pointed to a study from the medical journal Anaesthesia, which found that one-third of MAiD patients took 30 hours to die, while four patients in particular took longer than seven days.
