BURST
A woman transferred out of St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver to get assisted dying suffered physical and psychological stress because of the move, her grandson told a trial challenging the right of church-run medical facilities to ban a procedure because of a moral belief.
“The process that we went through was very traumatic and upsetting,” said Robert Chavarie, whose grandmother, Sheila Baker, was moved from the Catholic-run hospital in 2022 so she could receive assisted dying at Vancouver General Hospital.
He was testifying at a trial for the lawsuit filed by the parents of another woman, Samantha (Sam) O’Neill, who was transferred to a hospice where a doctor helped her die in 2023 because she had terminal cancer.
The O’Neills, the pro-assisted death group Dying with Dignity, and a former St. Paul’s doctor filed the lawsuit to ask the B.C. Supreme Court to remove the exemption granted to religious groups such as the hospital’s operator, Providence Health Care, to allow them to opt out of assisted dying procedures.
The exemption is based on the section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees the fundamental freedom of Canadians to follow their conscience and religion and not to act against their beliefs.
The trial before Chief Justice Ronald Skolrood this week heard from Gaye O’Neill on how the transfer of her ill daughter from the hospital on the morning of the day she died, April 4, 2023, at 8:30 p.m., affected her.
Sam’s friend, Meaghan MacKay, on Wednesday testified that the transfer was upsetting to watch even though Sam was sedated through transport.
She said she had heard how the assisted dying procedure was peaceful and beautiful, but she said the reality of Sam’s was that her final goodbyes were rushed because the transfer team was waiting. And she said the hospice didn’t appear set up to accommodate her arrival and Sam’s mother and a friend had to clear a room of medical aids before the gurney could be rolled in.
Chavarie, also a witness for the plaintiffs, said it was distressing for he and his family to watch how the transfer team had difficulty moving his grandmother to the gurney because medically she was considered morbidly obese.
“There was some disagreement about whether Sheila would sit on the gurney because of her obesity,” he said, adding the team said they might not be able to do the transfer.
The conversation “included by grandmother as well, who was really distressed by this,” he said. “In her words, she was being told she was too fat to be transferred.”
The transfer did happen that day, Dec. 19, 2022, and he recounted how he heard his grandmother crying out in pain as she was wheeled out.
“It had a big impact on all of us. It really impacted how we spent Christmas that year.”
Also on Wednesday, Skolrood delivered his judgment on an application by Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, one of the defendants, ruling the evidence of the three plaintiff doctors should be limited to their observations and experience and not include opinions.
Their evidence will be used to establish that the assisted dying ban at the hospital caused the doctors moral distress, violating their Charter rights — the guarantee of their life, liberty and security of person, and their rights to freedom of conscience and religion.
The doctors are asking the court to rule that these rights were violated by the ban and how the patients’ experiences affected them.
Vancouver Coastal Health argued their evidence, already set out in their affidavits filed with the court, should be inadmissible on a number of grounds, including that they contain improper opinion evidence, hearsay, argument, speculation or facts outside of their personal knowledge, Skolrood said in his decision.
VCH argued the anecdotes are unreliable and they cannot be properly tested under cross-examination, given that the patients can’t be identified and their medical records aren’t before the court.
The doctors’ lawyers argued in submissions that their own experiences and observations are directly relevant to the issues, including the impact on them of not being able to administer assisted dying “in accordance with their personal and professional beliefs,” according to the ruling.
Skolrood said at the heart of the lawsuit and for him as judge to decide is whether or not a “patient (is) experiencing a specific medical condition caused by waiting for a medical procedure.” He said the plaintiff doctors are not certified by the court as expert witnesses to draw those conclusions.
He cited some examples from the affidavits that would be admissible, such as a doctor noting that a patient was screaming during a transfer from stretcher and therefore she moved quickly with the procedure. And he included one that would not be allowed, such as the “baldface assertion” that “forced transfers also caused physical suffering.”
The trial continues.