CBC: Faith-based hospitals in Winnipeg ban medically assisted deaths
Two faith-based hospitals in Winnipeg say they will not be providing doctor-assisted deaths to their patients….
Arthur Schafer, director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba, said it is “disturbing” that a publicly funded hospital wouldn’t offer the full range of health services to patients who want and need them.
“The idea that patients who live in Concordia Place for example — that’s their home — and if they wish to die at home, the fact that the church with whom the hospital is affiliated doesn’t approve of that, shouldn’t limit [the patient’s] fundamental right.”
“No patient should be denied their wish to die at home, to die where they’re living.”
Schafer said while doctors and nurses are entitled to conscientiously object from administering a medically assisted death, a hospital or institution does not have the same right. The federal legislation acknowledges personal beliefs and does not force any person or health care worker to provide medical assistance in dying.
“The people who work within those institutions have a conscience, the institution doesn’t,” he said. “Their belief, which is a legitimate religious conviction they have, shouldn’t be imposed on patients, doctors, nurses or the general public.”