A Vancouver priest recovering from a hip fracture at Vancouver General Hospital says he was twice offered assisted death by health-care staff who knew he was a priest and opposed to euthanasia.
Father Larry Holland, 79, of the Archdiocese of Vancouver, suffered a hip fracture after falling in his bathroom on Christmas Day. He described his reaction when a doctor first raised Medical Assistance in Dying as an option. “I think I was very shocked,” he said. “It is such a sensitive subject.”
Father Holland told the doctor he was morally opposed to euthanasia. The doctor explained he “just wanted to make sure that, if a terminal diagnosis came up or not, I knew of the different services I had access to.” Weeks later, a nurse raised MAiD a second time — seemingly out of compassion for the pain he was enduring.
Father Holland said it is disturbing that a health-care provider suggests euthanasia to any patient — and particularly to a consecrated religious known to be morally opposed. “It places the medical practitioner into the role of the devil, tempting a vulnerable person into mortal sin.”