Canadian hospice forced to close after refusing to offer assisted dying

February 28, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 1 Print

Vancouver, Canada, Feb 28, 2020 / 05:00 pm (CNA).- A hospice in Canada has lost its funding and is being forced to close after refusing to offer and perform medically assisted suicides.

The Irene Thomas Hospice in Delta, British Columbia, will lose $1.5 million in funding and will no longer be permitted to operate as a hospice as of February 25, 2021. Fraser Health Authority, one of the six public health care authorities in the province, announced on Tuesday that it would be ending its relationship with the hospice over its refusal to provide medically assisted deaths to its patients. 

Per Fraser Health’s contract with the Delta Hospice Society, which administers the Irene Thomas Hospice, a one-year notice had to be provided before funding could be withdrawn without cause.

"We have made every effort to support the board to come into compliance and they have been clear that they have no intention to," said British Columbia Health Minister Adrian Dix in a statement.

Dix said that the decision to pull funding was taken “reluctantly,” and that “when the role of the Delta Hospice Society concludes, patients in publicly funded hospice care will again be able to fully access their medical rights."

A press release from Delta Hospice said that while it is not affiliated with a religion, the board of the Delta Hospice Society is opposed to medically assisted death on moral and philosophical grounds. 

“Delta Hospice officials were shocked and outraged this week by the Fraser Health Authority’s blatant move to cut off all discussions and close the facility because it wants the hospice to provide MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) at every facility,” said the statement. 

“The Irene Thomas Hospice is dedicated to allowing patients access to expert symptom management for physical, emotional and spiritual distress. It provides comfort, meaning dignity and hope as one dies a natural death.” 

In September 2016, about three months after medically assissted suicide became legal in Canada, Fraser Health introduced a new policy which required all hospices receiving more than 50% of provincial funding for their beds to offer the procedure to their residents. The hospice receives $1.4 million of its $3 million operating budget from the Fraser Health Authority, and Fraser Health funds virtually all of the beds at Irene Thomas Hospice. 

Angelina Ireland, president of the Delta Hospice Society, said in the press release that Fraser Health ignored her request to lower the amount of funding to below the 50% threshold, and also forbade the hospice from finding another partner to work with. 

After the contract with Fraser Health ends, the public health authority intends to take over the buildings that currently compose the Irene Thomas Hospital and bring in medically assisted dying. 

“By refusing to allow us to find another partner, [Fraser Health is] basically forcing us to be in default of our lease–because in order to have our lease, we have to be a hospice,” Ireland said. 

“They feel that they can just come in and seize our assets.” 

Ireland told CNA that although the facilities are on land that is leased from the government, the buildings were constructed using donations from the community of Delta.

“We built this facility,” she said. “We built that 10 years ago, and we put $9 million into that of privately-raised money from donations.” 

“This didn’t come from the taxpayer. This came from private people.” 

The Delta Hospice Society wishes to provide patients with a peaceful natural death, not actively end patients’ lives, Ireland explained to CNA. 

“[The hospice] worked really hard to have the people to trust us that when they come to hospice they will not be killed,” she said. “We will take care of them, they will take care of their families. And now basically the government has said that any hospice that does not provide euthanasia, it's not allowed to exist.”

Ireland called this a “direct attack” on the medical specialty of palliative care. 

Faith-based healthcare organizations, as well as medical professionals opposed to MAiD, are not required to offer medically assisted suicide to patients in Canada. Doctors, however, must refer patients seeking an “assisted death” to a healthcare provider who is willing to euthanize them. 

Assisted dying is readily available at Delta Hospital, which is a one-minute drive from the Irene Thomas Hospice.

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Barred from disaster relief, damaged Texas churches sue government

September 7, 2017 CNA Daily News 2

Washington D.C., Sep 8, 2017 / 12:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Texas churches damaged by Hurricane Harvey filed a lawsuit against the Federal Emergency Management Agency, claiming they have been denied disaster relief grants due to their religious status.

“After the costliest and most devastating natural disaster in U.S. history, the government should come to the aid of all, not leave important parts of the community underwater,” said Diana Verm, counsel at Becket, a non-profit religious liberty law firm representing the churches.

“Hurricane Harvey didn’t cherry-pick its victims; FEMA shouldn’t cherry-pick who it helps.”

Hurricane Harvey, which ravaged the Texas coast in recent weeks, brought severe flooding to Southeast Texas, resulted in the deaths of over 60 persons, displaced 30,000, and damaged or destroyed homes throughout the region. It has reportedly caused billions of dollars of damage.

Becket filed a lawsuit against FEMA in a Houston federal court. In a complaint filed on Monday, three Texas churches – Harvest Family Church of Cypress, Tex., Hi-Way Tabernacle in Cleveland, Tex., and Rockport First Assembly of God in Rockport, Tex. – said that FEMA unlawfully denied them grants for disaster relief simply because of their religious status.

FEMA’s disaster relief policy states that “[f]acilities established or primarily used for political, athletic, religious, recreational, vocational, or academic training, conferences, or similar activities are not eligible” for grants.

Yet other non-profit community centers are eligible for grants, Becket says. And churches, some of which have helped distribute FEMA aid, need relief grants to make serious repairs.

“We’re just picking up the pieces like everyone else. And we just want to be treated like everyone else,” said Paul Capehart of Harvest Family Church.

“Our faith is what drives us to help others. Faith certainly doesn’t keep us from helping others, and we’re not sure why it keeps FEMA from helping us.”

The churches’ complaint claims that their eligibility for disaster relief is protected under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, that they cannot be denied relief simply because of their religious status.

And churches have been actively helping distribute disaster relief. One of the churches in the lawsuit, HiWay Tabernacle, “is currently in use as a shelter for dozens of evacuees, a warehouse for disaster relief supplies, a distribution center for thousands of emergency meals, and a base to provide medical services,” the complaint stated. Over 8,000 FEMA emergency meals have been handed out at the church’s facilities.

And other non-profit facilities are eligible for disaster relief, like “community centers,” the complaint said, so religious non-profits shouldn’t be excluded from grants.

The churches are in need of serious repairs, the complaint said. For instance, Rockport First Assembly of God saw its roof and its internal lighting and insulation destroyed. Serious flood damage also occurred at Hi-Way Tabernacle and harvest Family Churches.

FEMA’s policy prohibiting churches from receiving disaster relief is also in opposition to the Supreme Court’s ruling months ago in the Trinity Lutheran case, Becket argued.

Then the court had ruled in favor of a Lutheran church, which had applied for a state program that would reimburse it for resurfacing the playground of its school with material made from recycled tires.

Becket said that court’s decision was “protecting the right of religious organizations to participate in generally available programs on equal footing with secular organizations.”

The court’s majority opinion did contain a footnote stating that the decision was about “discrimination based on religious identity with respect to playground resurfacing,” and did not “address religious uses of funding or other forms of discrimination.”

Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas wrote a concurring opinion, pointing out that the footnote in question could be misinterpreted.

“I worry that some might mistakenly read” the footnote to apply only to “’playground resurfacing’ cases, or only those with some association with children’s safety or health, or perhaps some other social good we find sufficiently worthy,” Gorsuch wrote.

He said that “the general principles here do not permit discrimination against religious exercise – whether on the playground or anywhere else.”

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