Catholic hospital slammed for naming euthanasia doctor as palliative care director

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Catholic hospital slammed for naming euthanasia doctor as palliative care director: ‘Hired a murderer’
'I can't believe that the Catholic institution which runs Catholic hospitals in Ontario would hire a public advocate and practitioner of euthanasia,' Jack Fonseca of Campaign Life Coalition said.



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Sep 22, 2023
KINGSTON, Ontario (LifeSiteNews) — Catholics are blasting an Ontario Catholic hospital for naming a euthanasia provider as their palliative care director.

Dr. Danielle Kain, a medical aid in dying (MAiD, which in Canada indicates voluntary execution by a medical professional) provider, was appointed as interim clinical director of palliative care at Providence Hospital in Kingston, Ontario on July 1, according to B.C. Catholic.

“I can’t believe that the Catholic institution which runs Catholic hospitals in Ontario would hire a public advocate and practitioner of euthanasia,” Jack Fonseca of Campaign Life Coalition told LifeSiteNews.

“They’ve hired a murderer, for Pete’s sake! I suppose one can guess that the individuals running that institution are Catholics-in-name-only, just like our separate school teachers,” he continued. “Only there to collect a nice paycheck, and don’t give a damn about the faith or the 10 Commandments.”

Originally, Providence Hospital was run by Catholic religious sisters. However, it is now part of 22 healthcare institutions in Ontario under the sponsorship of Catholic Health Sponsors of Ontario (CHSO) that was formed in 1998 to run institutions previously managed by religious sisters.

The nominally Catholic hospital has now hired Kain, who is both a staunch proponent and practitioner of euthanasia.

Kain regularly promotes MAiD on her social media, including X, formerly known as Twitter. On February 5, Kain reposted a thread that read, “Having #MAiD as an option to end suffering in a controlled & supported way is not the same as offering death as a treatment option. #MAiD is a patient-driven choice & their right.”

Kain has also used her social media to argue that all publicly funded institutions, including Catholic hospitals, should be forced to offer MAiD to their patients. Additionally, Kain voiced support for the Effective Referral Policy, which forces doctors who are opposed to euthanasia to refer their patients to another doctor who will give patients MAiD.

However, according to Catholic ethics, referring someone for euthanasia is participating in their death, which is a grave sin.

According to B.C. Catholic, Kain wrote in a 2016 post on X, “Making an effective referral is not an infringement of rights.”

Furthermore, in 2018, Kain and a colleague, Madeline Li, wrote a personal reflection on MAiD in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. The article cited two individual cases in which they were involved in proving euthanasia.

“At the ensuing team debrief,” Kain wrote, “I was struck by how rare it is for health care providers to be so deeply moved together; we realized that a medically assisted death could be both poignant and peaceful.”

However, many Catholics are fighting against Kain’s appointment, including the Canadian Federation of Catholic Physicians. The federation has appealed to both the CHSO and the local ordinary, Archbishop Michael Mulhall.

The CHSO is responsible for appointing board members and CEOs of each organization. All healthcare institutions which fall under the CHSO’s leadership are bound by the guidelines of the Health Ethics Guide, a 2012 publication of the Catholic Health Alliance of Canada.

According to article 87, “treatment decisions for the person receiving care are never to include actions or omissions that intentionally cause death (euthanasia).”

LifeSiteNews reached out to the CHSO to ask if the organization thinks it could be dangerous to patients to have a proponent of assisted suicide as the director of palliative care.

LifeSiteNews also questioned if CHCO has taken any steps to ensure that Kain will not pressure the hospital to provide MAiD or refer patients for MAiD. However, CHCO failed to respond by time of publication.

Dr. Pascal Bastien, an internal medicine specialist in Ottawa, joined 20 Catholic medical professionals in expressing his concern over Kain’s appointment to Archbishop Mulhall in a June 29 letter.

Bastien was told that the boundaries laid out the Health Ethics Guide would protect the hospital from internal or external pressure to provide MAiD to their patients.

“If we are hiring her, a public promoter of euthanasia, we are falling short in the promotion of Catholic values and the understanding of the human person,” he questioned. “We have already demonstrated in the hiring process that we are not following the Health Ethics Guide.”

LifeSiteNews also reached out to Archbishop Mulhall, but he failed to respond by time of publication.

Fonseca declared that he is “astonished that His Excellency, Archbishop Michael Mulhall, is allowing this five-alarm scandal to continue under his nose, in his diocese.”

“Does His Excellency not care that a person who commits murder and publicly urges other physicians to do the same, is running the palliative care division at his Catholic hospital,” he questioned. “Does he not care for the vulnerable sick and elderly who may be susceptible to euthanasia, with Kain there in charge?”

“The Archbishop must break his silence and end this scandal immediately,” Fonseca declared. [More here.]