From the Catholic Register:
A Vancouver priest recovering from a hip fracture at Vancouver General Hospital says he was twice offered assisted death by health-care staff who knew he was a priest and opposed to euthanasia — a practice critics say is growing as medical professionals are increasingly encouraged to initiate such conversations.
“There are some things you just don’t talk about to some people,” said Fr. Larry Holland, who has completed studies in health-care chaplaincy in addition to serving at numerous parishes in the Archdiocese of Vancouver.
He said he was “shocked” when a doctor brought up the option of MAiD should his condition deteriorate.
Holland, 79, is currently convalescing at VGH after suffering a hip fracture from a fall on Christmas Day.
Holland said he wasn’t dying then or now and that the doctor’s mention of MAiD left him “kind of silent” for a moment. The doctor then raised the subject again, saying it’s “something they have to discuss with someone who’s been given a terminal diagnosis.”
Holland recalled telling the doctor he was morally opposed to euthanasia. The doctor explained that “he just wanted to make sure that, if a (terminal) diagnosis came up or not … I knew of the different services I had access to.”
Weeks later, a second offer of MAiD came from a nurse who the priest said seemed uncomfortable raising the topic and was likely doing so out of compassion because of the pain he was enduring.
“It’s a false compassion, really,” he said.
A spokesman for Vancouver Coastal Health, which operates VGH, told The B.C. Catholic in an email that “staff may consider bringing up MAiD based on their clinical judgment, provided they possess the necessary knowledge and skills to do so.” Staff are also “responsible for answering questions when patients bring up the topic of MAiD,” the spokesman said.
The two incidents arise as Canada approaches 100,000 assisted dying deaths.
