‘The Vatican has so much power’

Ian Shearer’s experience at St. Paul’s Hospital highlights one of the thorniest issues concerning assisted death: the decision of most faith- based — but taxpayerfunded — health- care facilities to play no part in a practice made legal by the Supreme Court of Canada and federal legislation.

“We have nine judges who said ‘ Yes’ to medical assistance in dying,” Lackie said. “I don’t understand how the Vatican has so much power, even here in Canada.”

The bill implementing the Supreme Court’s ruling, passed in June, includes no requirement that any institution permit the practice.

“Life is sacred and the dignity of the person is important,” said Michael Shea, president of the Catholic Health Alliance of Canada. “These organizations neither prolong dying nor hasten death, and that’s a pretty fundamental value for them.”

Shaf Hussain, a spokesman for Providence Health Care, which operates St. Paul’s, said he could not comment on Shearer’s case specifically. But under a policy finalized this summer, he said, the Catholic organization arranges to transfer patients as comfortably as possible when they express a desire for assisted death.

Even the medical assessment required under the law and the signing of consent forms must take place outside Providence properties.

“We’ll be working with our partners in the health care system to ensure the patients’ needs do come first … and to minimize the discomfort and pain,” Hussain said.

Shearer, a retired accountant originally from Calgary, suffered from spinal stenosis — a narrowing of the spine that can put pressure on the spinal cord — heart disease, kidney failure and, toward the end, sepsis, said his daughter.

The spinal condition was so debilitating, “just to touch him, he would scream.”

Lackie said she was surprised by his request, but supportive, realizing he was dying “a slow, painful” death.

It would be days, however, before Shearer was transferred to Vancouver General Hospital, and on the designated date — Aug. 29 — the ambulance arrived more than three hours late, said the daughter.

The man’s dose of the pain drug fentanyl had been reduced to ensure he was lucid enough to consent to the assisted death, but as time wore on the pain grew worse, and there was a shortage of the narcotic on his ward, she said.

Already in agony, Shearer cried out desperately with each bump during the fourkilometre ambulance ride, said Lackie.

Assisted- death bans can not only lead to suffering during the transfer itself, but effectively deny patients the right in areas where there is no alternative to the faith- based institution, said Shanaaz Gokool, head of the group Dying with Dignity.

“This is going to be a real issue, and it’s going to be a real issue across the country.”

Vulnerable patients are suffering because of a decision that benefits only the institution, argued Juliet Guichon, a bioethicist at the University of Calgary. “How can such harm be justified?”