A Canadian woman – who had scheduled an assisted suicide for 27 October – had her plan blocked when a British Columbian judge issued a rare, last-minute injunction barring her from the procedure, after physicians in her home province refused to approve the request.
The injunction, granted to the woman’s common law partner, blocks Vancouver physician Ellen Wiebe, or any other medical professional, from “causing the death” of the woman within the next 30 days, The Guardian reports.
The court order comes amid a fractious debate in the country over the expansion of medical assistance in dying, or Maid. Last week, Quebec became the first province to allow people to make the decision years in advance – a violation of federal law.
While official figures show most people accessing Maid have terminal illnesses, critics worry that a small, but growing proportion of the cases reflects poverty and social inequality pushing people to end their lives.
In the British Columbia case, the injunction came after the woman’s partner filed a notice of civil claim alleging Wiebe negligently approved the procedure for a patient who does not legally qualify, and if she were to administer Maid, it would “constitute a battery of (the patient), wrongful death and, potentially, a criminal offence”.
Court documents show the 53-year-old woman travelled from Alberta to British Columbia to access Maid after doctors in her home province refused to grant approval.
She had applied for Maid citing akathisia, a movement disorder linked to changing doses of psychotropic or antipsychotic medication. The woman experienced “distressing side effects” after reducing her dosage of a medication used to treat bipolar disorder.
Among the symptoms were “an inner sense of terror all day long, the inability to sleep at night, nightmares, the inability to lie down during the day due to a feeling of falling, the inability to sit or remain still, suicidal thoughts”.
But the woman and her partner were told the condition was treatable and that the symptoms could resolve within months, according to court documents. As a result, doctors did not approve her request for assisted death.
Undaunted, the woman found Wiebe and they met via Zoom. “At the end of the first meeting, Wiebe approved (the woman) for Maid,” the claim says.
Wiebe, a clinical professor at the University of British Columbia, has emerged as a fierce advocate for Maid, arguing the current laws are meant to acknowledge “basic human rights”.
The British Columbia lawsuit alleges that Wiebe did not consult the woman’s doctors, nor did she request full medical records. Instead, she is alleged to have only reviewed a portion of the woman’s medical records by email.
In Canada, the euthanasia framework has two “tracks” – one for terminal conditions and another where “natural death is not reasonably foreseeable”. Applicants whose medical condition is mental illness will remain ineligible until at least March 2027.
In cases where the applicant suffers from a chronic, irremediable physical condition, federal law requires that a second, independent doctor also approve the request. The lawsuit alleges that did not happen in the case of the Alberta woman.
Wiebe declined to comment.
In his ruling, Simon Coval, a BC Supreme Court judge, said the woman appeared to have a mental health condition with no physical ailment. He said he approved the request because the case was “clearly a situation of extreme irreparable harm” if she had followed through on her plan to die on 27 October.
Coval acknowledged the injunction was “a severe intrusion” into the woman’s personal and medical autonomy.
“I can only imagine the pain she has been experiencing and I recognise that this injunction will likely make that worse,” he wrote. But he questioned whether the Maid standards were properly applied, given that her condition “may not only be remediable, but remediable relatively quickly”.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Canada to legalise assisted suicide for mental illness
Assisted suicide ethical dilemma for psychiatrists
Judge to decide on Canadian woman’s quest for assisted death