{"id":573367,"date":"2026-03-31T17:54:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T17:54:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/573367\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T17:54:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T17:54:09","slug":"b-c-woman-claims-she-was-offered-maid-in-vancouver-hospital-before-other-treatments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/573367\/","title":{"rendered":"B.C. woman claims she was offered MAID in Vancouver hospital before other treatments"},"content":{"rendered":"

A B.C. senior is speaking out after a simple trip to an emergency department last year, she says, took an unsettling turn.<\/p>\n

For 83-year-old Miriam Lancaster, the experience started as she was getting out of bed one morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI put my foot on the floor and had such excruciating and unusual pain that I called out,\u201d said Lancaster.<\/p>\n

\"Miriam(Supplied Image)<\/p>\n

Paramedics rushed Lancaster to Vancouver General Hospital, but when she arrived, she claims the initial treatment offered to her by a young doctor came as a shock.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe admitting staff in the ER had whistled me into a bed, and she was the first medical person questioning me, and that\u2019s where it all started,\u201d said Lancaster.<\/p>\n

She says the doctor began asking about medical assistance in dying (MAID).<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I thought MAID? Good heavens, surely not MAID. And I wouldn\u2019t take MAID under any circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lancaster\u2019s daughter, Jordan Weaver, says her mother did not have a terminal condition.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy mum is in wonderful health; we just wanted pain relief. And we wanted to know what had happened. It was difficult to identify where the pain had come from,\u201d said Weaver.<\/p>\n

Lancaster, who declined MAID, says doctors later identified the pain as a fractured sacrum \u2014 a bone in the base of the spine which is treated through bed rest.<\/p>\n

While she healed in hospital, she says she received excellent care. In the year since her hospital trip, she\u2019s been well enough to take other trips.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy daughter and I do like to travel, so off we went to Cuba in the fall, that was the fall last year, and then this year in the spring, we went to Mexico and Guatemala.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weaver attests her mother is still \u201cfull of zip.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no need for her to be thinking of ending her life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pair don\u2019t blame Vancouver Coastal Health or the doctor for proposing MAID, but raised concerns with how hastily it was offered as a first response.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust as soon as you arrive at the hospital, and you\u2019re of a certain age, that is just offered before asking any questions. You\u2019re already upset by being in hospital \u2014 nobody likes to be in hospital \u2014 so you\u2019re already apprehensive, and then to be given a life-threatening question\u2026 That\u2019s why I\u2019m going public about this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vancouver Coastal Health says it wasn\u2019t aware of the incident, and, under current guidelines, staff may consider bringing up MAID based on their clinical judgement.<\/p>\n

A statement from the health authority adds, \u201cStaff are responsible for answering questions when patients bring up the topic of MAID. ED staff are not generally in a position to raise the topic of MAID with patients.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Miriam(Supplied Image)<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, the Alberta provincial government introduced a new bill to implement safeguards around MAID and provide new frameworks to protect vulnerable individuals.<\/p>\n

Lancaster says the same legislation should be considered in B.C.<\/p>\n

\u201cHospitals should review their policy and not be so hasty to offer MAID,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

When asked how B.C. might respond, the Ministry of Health did not provide a comment in time for broadcast.<\/p>\n

A 2025 Statistics Canada report on MAID found B.C. was among the provinces with the most MAID provisions. Quebec, Ontario and B.C., it says, account for nearly 85 per cent of all MAID provisions in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A B.C. senior is speaking out after a simple trip to an emergency department last year, she says,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[49,48,55],"class_list":["post-573367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}