Family says man received MAID on psychiatric day pass, files wrongful-death lawsuit

VANCOUVER — The family of a 52-year-old man who received medical assistance in dying while on a day pass from a Vancouver psychiatric hospital has launched a constitutional challenge to the procedure’s legal framework.

The notice of civil claim filed Friday at the B.C. Supreme Court says the businessman and father of three, who suffered chronic back pain and long-term mental illness, suffered wrongful death in December 2022.

It accuses Dr. Ellen Wiebe and her clinic of malpractice, though none of the allegations have been proven in court.

Another patient of Wiebe’s clinic was the subject of an urgent injunction less than two months ago, when a B.C. judge halted an Alberta woman’s medically assisted death, the day before Wiebe was scheduled to perform the procedure in Vancouver.

Friday’s notice of claim, which only identifies the man by initials, says that while MAID’s framework excludes people solely suffering from mental illnesses, it does not supply similar safeguards for those with “concurrent mental and physical illnesses,” heightening risks of premature death.

The family is seeking damages for alleged wrongful death as well as a declaration that the man’s Charter rights were breached and that the MAID framework is invalid and unconstitutional.

Wiebe declined a request for comment.

The lawsuit says the man was formally diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2013. It said he was also suffering chronic back pain, but this injury was neither grievous nor incurable enough to make him eligible for MAID.

The notice says he sought and received approval for MAID — though it did not include a date.

But the notice says he then decided to pursue treatment and rehabilitation instead.

Applicants whose sole medical condition is mental illness will remain ineligible under MAID until at least March 2027.

The man’s family obtained a court order under the Mental Health Act to commit him to a psychiatric ward at St. Paul’s Hospital, the lawsuit says. It claims the hospital and his doctors “negligently or recklessly” allowed him to leave the hospital and undergo MAID.

The notice says the family only learned of his death afterward.

They claim the man was not capable of making decisions about his health at the time and allege his choice was influenced by concerns about his finances. It says he did not give informed consent “as he lacked capacity to do so.”

In the case of the Alberta woman whose medically assisted death was halted in October, the judge who issued the injunction said she appeared to have a mental health condition with no physical ailment.

Wiebe was interviewed for a BBC documentary that screened this year, telling an interviewer that she had been involved with more than 400 MAID deaths.

She said there were situations “where I find someone not eligible or eligible when another person won’t, because of the way our law is written.”

Wiebe told the BBC the “No. 1 reason” people wanted MAID was to maintain “autonomy and control.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 19, 2024.

Brieanna Charlebois, The Canadian Press