Editor:
This Delta Hospice issue has caused a great outpouring of pain, as your letters and articles prove. I think the simple truth has got lost in the emotions.
The hospice board is not saying people can’t have physician-assisted death here in this community, so there is nothing cruel in its stance. To use the word cruel in association with a hospice volunteer is a misuse of vocabulary.
What the board is saying is that our community built a unit specifically for palliative care and that is its focus. This care is complex, which is why great efforts were made to create the unit.
Fraser Health maintains our hospital and community care units with our taxpayer dollars. As noted in the letter in last week’s Optimist from the former director of the hospice society, B.C. is the only province that mandated MAiD should be done in hospice. Of course, it is easier for Fraser Health to take over a hospice bed to deal with the new law.
The reality is there are other comfortable and professional locations for this procedure, and Fraser Heath must provide these options to us. This is the law.
Let’s stop arguing amongst ourselves.
Suitable space needs to be made available by Fraser Health, let’s unite and ask for that.
In Europe I understand there are purpose-built facilities for MAiD. Maybe in the fullness of time the community will fundraise and build something of that nature here.
Mac Savage
