Ladner hospice loses provincial funding over refusal to comply with MAID
Credit to Author: Rob Shaw| Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2020 02:00:19 +0000
VICTORIA — Delta’s 10-bed hospice facility is losing its provincial funding and may have its building claimed by the Fraser Health Authority, after refusing to allow medically assisted dying.
Health Minister Adrian Dix said Tuesday he’s instructed Fraser Health to stop paying $1.5 million annually to the Delta Hospice Society within the next year because it is violating federal law and B.C. government policy that requires medically assisted dying be made allowed at non-denominational facilities that receive more than half their funding from the province.
“What this means is that the Delta Hospice Society will have no role to play in publicly funded hospice care again after this 365-day period,” said Dix.
“We now have 365 days to determine how we can ensure hospice services can remain in Delta. We may take over the existing site. We may find another site. These beds will not move out of Delta.”
The government may at the end of the year take possession of the building, which is on Fraser Health Authority land rented for $1 a year to the hospice society, said Dix.
The decision caps a messy two-year battle within the Delta Hospice Society, which has lurched through board members, terminations, packed annual general meetings and mass membership sign-ups over whether to allow medically assisted dying at the Irene Thomas Hospice.
The current board, which took power in December after a membership drive threw out some members of the board, refuses to allow medically assisted dying at the facility.
Dix said that is in contravention of federal and provincial government policies that allow people in public care beds to choose to die with assistance if they wish, in certain circumstances.
At least one person has been denied the service at Irene Thomas Hospice, said Dix.
“These are profound decisions and ultimately these are the decisions that are the right of the individual to make without being fettered, without being harassed, without being talked to in a way that takes away their individual right to make their decision,” said Dix.
Staff at the Delta Hospice Society’s Irene Thomas facility in Ladner.
“In many ways, this is the last decision someone makes in their lives. It provides individuals with agency when everything else in their lives has been stripped away. They’re just about to pass away. Everything has been taken away.
“It gives them agency and control and that belongs to them. The Supreme Court says so. The federal government says so. The previous (B.C.) government says so. And I say so.”
Dix said discussions with the Delta Hospice Society failed to come to a solution.
Randy Scott, a hospice board member who resigned in December 2019 over the current board’s refusal to allow medically assisted dying, said Fraser Health has been clear the funding would stop unless the board changed its position.
“I’m not surprised Fraser Health has pulled the funding,” said Scott. “For me being on the board, it wasn’t a matter of are you for MAID (medical assistance in dying) or against MAID, it was about how to make the hospice viable for the community.
“And when it comes down to Fraser Health saying you must provide MAID to have funding, it becomes a yes or no question to the current board.”
Scott said the current board is using religious beliefs as justification for its position, but there are actually much larger and longer-term concerns that date back to the previous long-time executive director, Nancy Macey, who was dismissed in 2018 by an iteration of the board that was then subsequently overthrown.
The hospice has suffered with poor morale, resignations, terminations and departing volunteers in recent years, he said.
Ultimately, the current board’s opposition to medically assisted dying doesn’t match up with the community’s broader support of the service, said Scott, who operates a local vehicle repair shop.
“I’ve been out here at my business for 28 years, and I figure I’ve got a pretty good idea about how the community feels about it, and I would say 80 to 90 per cent of people are for it,” said Scott. “The majority of people in this community are for MAID.”
Hospice care, such as that provided at Irene Thomas, helps patients approach end of life with pain management and specialized support.
“During the 365 days’ notice period, patients currently at the hospice will continue to receive hospice care service as we do not wish to interrupt any care,” Fraser Health said in an unattributed statement,
The statement added that no one at the hospice was being forced to provide MAID services, as that would be done by outside medical professionals.
B.C.’s policy that mandates access to medically assisted dying in public facilities came into effect in 2016, under the previous Liberal government. The federal government also has legislation, which was challenged in court and then reintroduced by Ottawa this week, to broaden access to assisted dying.
Approximately 3,000 people have chosen to die with assistance between 2016 and November 2019, said Dix, and the majority of those people chose to do it at home. Religion-based facilities are not required to allow medically assisted dying, but must refer patients who want to the service to another facility.
Dix said he could have chosen to immediately terminate the contract with the Delta Hospice Society for cause, at which point the dispute would likely have ended up in court. But he said allowing another year is best for the community. In the meantime, people admitted to the Irene Thomas Hospice will be screened before admission as to whether they are interested in assisted dying, and if so will be directed to other facilities, he said.
“The last thing we want to do and the last thing we have been is confrontational here,” he said. “But the reality is that we have to take action to ensure that people in one of their most vulnerable moments in their lives are able to access the services that they’re allowed to access.
“You know there’s a lot of discussion about the law and how it applies today, but surely if the law applies properly it should apply to those who are suffering and wanting to have all of the choices before them that they are legally entitled to have.”
Dix praised the previous B.C. Liberal government’s policies on assisted dying, set by then health minister Terry Lake, as appropriate and studied.
However, the current Opposition B.C. Liberals attacked Dix and the NDP on Tuesday for the move.
Delta South MLA Ian Paton called it an “unfortunate day” for the volunteers at Delta hospice who have fundraised and built up the facility since 1991.
“Now what I see is government literally stealing the assets of the people of Delta that worked so hard for many years to raise $8.5 million for this facility,” he said. “And it looks like a year from now, the government would be taking over the building and the assets.”
However, Paton repeatedly refused to say whether he supports the current Delta hospice policy to forbid medically assisted dying that has led to the showdown with government. Supporting the hospice would put Paton at odds with federal law, the Supreme Court of Canada, B.C. law and policies set by his party when in government.
“It’s a very heated debate in our community whether people are for or against MAiD,” he said. “And that’s not something I’m willing to go to.”
With a file from Susan Lazaruk