A man from Alberta wanted a maid. Instead, he died in a Catholic hospital awaiting transfer.
white coat black art26:30He was cleared for MAID – but died while waiting in a Catholic hospital
It’s September, and Stacey Hume is next to her father’s hospital bed in the palliative ward of Edmonton’s Gray Nuns Community Hospital. She, along with her mother and sister, are told by the staff that they will have to make a choice about her father.
Either struggle with him dying alone in an ambulance, possibly at a red light, or stay in the hospital, where “it might take him another three, four or five days to hang on like that,” Hume recalled.
His father William Hume was dying. Just a few months ago, he was diagnosed with late-stage gastroesophageal cancer. William wanted MAID, and was evaluated and approved shortly after diagnosis.
But the procedure is prohibited at Gray Nuns, where William was admitted, because it was the only Edmonton hospital with an ER bed available. The hospital is operated by Covenant Health – a publicly funded, Catholic health care provider in Alberta – which does not allow MAID to be administered at any of its sites. William would have to be transferred to another facility.
Faith-based health care providers are allowed to have policies prohibiting MAID. This means that patients who want an assisted death, like Hume, need to be transferred to another facility that allows the procedure, called a forced transfer.
In the end, the family did not take the decision for him. He died in the hospital on the afternoon of September 5, six hours before his 6:30 pm appointment for MAID. He was 79 years old.
“My father would be horrified to know that he went to a faith-based place and his final wishes were dictated by a religion he didn’t even believe in,” Stacey told CBC host Dr. Brian Goldman. White coat, black art.
William Hume’s travels
William’s terminal cancer diagnosis was a surprise to both him and his family.
“I think my father honestly thought he would live to be 100,” Stacey said.
According to his daughters, it was important for William to remain physically fit and healthy. He loved playing golf, sometimes playing golf twice a day.
After returning home from Palm Springs, California, in April, Williams felt a tickle in his throat while swallowing.
Stacy says she didn’t think much about it at the time. He was sent for barium swallow test, endoscopy and PET scan.
While camping, Stacey was the only one who read the test results online. Her father had stage 4 esophageal cancer.
She packed the car and drove back to Edmonton to tell him the news.
“It was devastating.”
Within days of finding out his diagnosis, William told his family he wanted MAID.
“There was no doubt in my father’s mind that this was what he wanted.”
his last few days
On September 2, William’s health deteriorated and he had to be taken to hospital via ambulance.
Stacey’s mother was told by paramedics that there was only one ER bed available in all of Edmonton at that time, and it was at Gray Nuns.
“We had no choice. If we wanted Dad to be cared for, we had to go to a Catholic hospital,” Stacey said.
In the palliative ward, staff told Stacey and her family that they would have to arrange for William’s transfer with the province’s MAID care coordination service.
“It came as shock No. 1 to us, that they actually washed their hands of it and said, ‘The rest is up to you if you want a maid.’
Stacey’s sister, Caroline Gunderson, called on the morning of September 3. She was told she would have to get a forced transfer to receive MAID.
A staff member at the Care Coordination Service later told him that the earliest it could be given was on Friday, three days after his admission.
One reason for this is that Dr. Andrea Letourneau, who was to administer MAID to William Hume, was only available in the evenings. Critical care specialists and certified MAID providers were working 10-hour days that week in the intensive care unit of another Edmonton hospital. They were also told that arranging transportation was difficult.
“As a physician, I try my best to be available to these patients in a short amount of time,” Letourneau said.
Stacey says shock number 2 came from a nurse at the hospital who said the family needed faith and that it was in God’s hands.
“My mother was completely taken aback and said, ‘What if I don’t believe in God?’ And the nurse said, ‘Oh, you don’t believe in God?'”
His father was not a religious person.
“We never expected religion to be a part of Dad’s death.”
Stacey Hume’s father knew he was dying and wanted medical assistance in dying (MAID). After being admitted to an Edmonton hospital run by a Catholic health-care provider, his family says he didn’t get the death he wanted.
When asked for an interview, a spokesperson for Covenant Health referred comment to Alberta Health Services (AHS).
In an emailed statement, AHS said it could not comment on specific patient details due to privacy issues.
The statement confirmed that a staff member from the MAID Care Coordination Service was “assisting the patient and family in carrying out the patient’s wishes prior to his passing.”
The statement also expressed condolences to the family.
forced transfer
Letourneau says that when forced relocation is required, a lot of logistics can be required to arrange. She says a certified MAID provider, a nurse, a facility that allows assisted deaths, and transportation all need to be arranged.
Letourneau often tells patients to give several days’ notice whenever possible, as MAID was not established as an “emergency procedure”.
“It was set up to give us time to try to get these things organized. Unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way, and medicine doesn’t work that way.”
According to this, 349 people had to be relocated due to the policy of one facility in 2024 Health Canada Annual Report On the maid. This represents about two percent of the 16,499 people who received MAID that year.
A court challenge over whether faith-based organizations in BC can continue to ban MAID in their facilities Currently pending in BC Supreme Court. Doctors say that if this case goes to the Supreme Court of Canada, it may affect other provinces as well.
Dr. Stephanie Green, a certified MAID provider in Victoria, BC, says forcing people who want MAID to move facilities is a “system-generated harm.”
She says many Canadians would be shocked to learn that an institution’s religious policy could dictate a legally viable, covered medical service.
“I think it seems like a problem when two patients suffering from the same disease in the same city can have very different end-of-life experiences depending on who owns the building they’re in.”
faith based facilities
The proportion of people forced to move because of a facility’s policy in 2023 and 2024 was highest in Alberta and Manitoba, according to Health Canada data.
Since MAID was legalized in 2016, Green says there has been a “softening” of these types of policies as more people understand the harm caused by these transfers.
She points to Quebec, where a provincial law was introduced in 2023 requiring all palliative care homes to allow medically assisted deaths.
He said, “I think we’ve seen that change. It’s a positive sign, but I think certainly when it comes to faith-based institutions, there’s a certain ideological value-based policy that’s not likely to change.”
Stacey, who has an appeal pending against him Lawsuit against AHS in an unrelated matterhas not filed any formal complaints against AHS or Covenant Health.
Her family is still struggling with the demise of her father and husband.
“Dad was adamant from the beginning: Maid is what he wanted. Maid is not what my dad got.”
