B.C.’s Supreme Court will begin hearing closing arguments this week in a case that will determine whether faith-based organizations can continue to prohibit medical assistance in dying at their facilities.

The case has been brought by the family of Samantha O’Neill, a woman who had to endure what her loved ones have described as a painful transfer from St. Paul’s Hospital to a hospice administered by Vancouver Coastal Health to receive Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID).

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Remembering their daughter for who she was and not her tragic end.

This all began in March of 2023, when Samantha, who was suffering from Stage 4 cervical cancer, was taken to St. Paul’s hospital in extreme pain.

By early April, her condition had deteriorated to the point that she requested MAID.

However, in order to receive it, the 34-year-old had to be transferred to a hospice 25 minutes away because St. Paul’s is a faith-based institution that does not allow MAID in its facilities.

Patients who choose the procedure are transferred elsewhere, and the lawsuit alleges the transfers are harmful after O’Neill was sedated and taken to another facility in an ambulance, but never regained consciousness.

O’Neil’s family, along with co-plaintiffs Dying with Dignity Canada, have argued that forcing MAID patients in faith-based facilities to undergo a transfer to obtain the service violates constitutional rights.

“A forced transfer causes harm, and they do it anyway because the bishop says you are using catholic assets, which we can’t have associated with an evil practice of euthanasia,” said Jim O’Neill, father of Samantha.

“That is why they are defending this position; it makes no sense, and it’s cruel.”

For O’Neill’s family, no decision in court will ever bring their daughter back, but they hope her story will help others avoid such an excruciating end.

“For me, what I would like the Judge to recognize is that that is a real harm to her, obviously, but also her friends and family, and also to the MAID provider who, against their better judgment, had to leave with her to go to another facility because they couldn’t do it at St. Paul’s,” said Daphne Gilbert, vice-chair of Dying with Dignity Canada.

“It stripped Sam of her dignity and caused unnecessary pain and suffering. The act of a non-medically necessary transfer breaks their legal duty to prevent harm.”

Now, lawyers representing Vancouver Coastal Health and the Providence Health Care Society have argued that there is no constitutional entitlement to access a medical service within a specific room and that spaces are available at adjacent facilities to faith-based hospitals to accommodate MAID patients who do not wish to go home.

Closing arguments are expected to continue all week, before going to a Supreme Court Justice, who is expected to deliver a decision by mid-summer or the fall.

– With files from The Canadian Press.