Dr. Ellen Wiebe in her Vancouver office on March 9, 2016.JONATHAN HAYWARD/The Canadian Press
A Vancouver doctor has been prohibited by the clinic she founded from using its staff to act as legal witnesses for new patients seeking her help to obtain medical assistance in dying, court documents show.
The board chair of the non-profit society that runs the Willow Reproductive Health Centre also committed in an affidavit to ensuring that Dr. Ellen Wiebe would not use clinic facilities to end the life of an Alberta woman who had sought Dr. Wiebe’s help. The woman was denied the procedure hours before it was supposed to occur in October after her common-law husband secured a court injunction.
“The society will no longer permit its employees to act as a witness in respect for MAID being considered by Dr. Wiebe,” says the affidavit filed by Lisa Redekop earlier this week.
In granting the injunction last fall, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Simon Coval said the case raised serious questions about whether people are being properly assessed as eligible for MAID and whether the process is properly followed. Dr. Wiebe has established an international reputation for her advocacy and work with patients who want a medically assisted death.
The injunction was one of at least three lawsuits last year involving how MAID applications are approved and what rights family members have to intervene. Last month, Canada’s oldest civil-liberties organization, which led the push for MAID to be legalized a decade ago, called on Ottawa and the provinces to review and enforce appropriate safeguards.
The Alberta man and his 53-year-old partner were granted anonymity in the legal proceedings in October because he feared she “would be mortified were her circumstances to become public,” according to Justice Coval.
The injunction application alleged that the Alberta woman, who reportedly has bipolar disorder and a condition known as akathisia – an intense uneasiness coupled with an inability to sit still that is linked to certain types of medication – could not get her own doctors to support her assisted death, so she searched online and found Dr. Wiebe.
The application alleged that Dr. Wiebe breached her statutory duty by approving MAID for a condition that does not qualify, while failing to review the patient’s medical history or conduct a full health assessment. The woman’s husband alleged that his wife couldn’t find a volunteer to witness her application, so a volunteer at the Willow clinic did so. The application also alleged that when the Alberta woman couldn’t find another doctor to provide the required approval, Dr. Wiebe found her one, connecting the two together for a second video-call assessment.
None of the allegations were proven in court.
The newly filed court documents also include a notice from the woman’s husband stating that he was officially dropping the temporary injunction barring his wife from receiving MAID. The injunction had expired in November but was not renewed. The lawyer for the husband declined comment.
Ms. Redekop, who filed the affidavit earlier this week, said in an interview that Dr. Wiebe’s MAID work is now separate from the clinic, which was taken over by the non-profit society a year ago. Dr. Wiebe’s MAID work is done from a small office rented from the clinic.
“We have a lot of respect for the work that Ellen does in terms of MAID, but it’s just a service that’s different than what is offered at Willow Reproductive Health,” Ms. Redekop said.
Dr. Wiebe founded the centre in 1997 to offer abortions and other reproductive health care and then, roughly a decade ago, became an early advocate pushing the boundaries of federal medical assistance in dying regulations. Two years ago she testified before a parliamentary committee that she had assessed about 750 people and provided about 430 medically assisted deaths. Two months ago, she appeared on a New York Times podcast about her controversial practice.
Dr. Wiebe did not respond to a request for comment this week.
Last March, an Alberta judge refused to grant a father an injunction against his 27-year-old daughter’s MAID application. The daughter, who had autism and lived with her parents, argued that the court does not have jurisdiction to review Alberta Health Services’ approval of her MAID application. The reasons why the woman was seeking MAID were not revealed.
In December, the family of a 52-year-old man who allegedly received MAID from Dr. Wiebe at the Willow clinic while out on a day pass from a Vancouver hospital psychiatric ward launched a legal challenge, alleging that Canada’s current laws are unconstitutional because they fail to protect suicidal and mentally ill people. The B.C. Supreme Court notice of civil claim also argues that the 52-year-old’s MAID procedure was a wrongful death.