Catholic hospital in Nova Scotia drops religious affiliation as death culture takes hold

A group of Catholic nuns is relinquishing the religious designation on Nova Scotia's only Catholic hospital after being forced to allow euthanasia and abortion to be committed onsite.

Key Takeaways:

St. Martha’s Regional Hospital Complex in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, had previously given control of the hospital to the Nova Scotia Health Authority (NSHA) with the promise that the hospital's Catholic identity would be protected.
In 2019, the NSHA announced assisted suicide and euthanasia would be committed in a specific section of the hospital.
The Sisters of St. Martha have announced they will now be removing their name from the hospital.

The Backstory:

In 2019, the NSHA quietly announced that MAID would be committed at St. Martha's Regional Hospital, the only Catholic hospital in Nova Scotia. Previously, in 1996, the Sisters of St. Martha had agreed for the NSHA to have control of the hospital, but only after an agreement was signed saying the hospital's Catholic identity would be respected and protected.

Yet, following legal threats from assisted suicide advocacy group Dying with Dignity, the NSHA abandoned its previous agreement, justifying it by saying assisted suicide and euthanasia would only be committed in a complex attached to the hospital, and not within the hospital itself.

Get the biggest pro life stories directly in your inbox. Breaking news, investigations, and stories you won't want to miss.

Such attacks on religious freedom in health care have been growing; Jocelyn Downie, of Dalhousie University, singled out St. Martha’s to reporters. “[I]t’s indefensible to have a publicly funded institution have a faith-based filter on the services that are available,” she said, attacking St. Martha’s for receiving taxpayer funding while refusing to participate in abortion and assisted suicide.

The Details:

The Sisters of St. Martha have now said they will remove their name and religious affiliation from the hospital, which will now be known as Antigonish Memorial Regional Hospital. While a reason wasn't explicitly given, the statement from the sisters insinuates it could be due to friction between the NSHA and the sisters.

“We decided as sisters, after we took a discernment time, prayed and thought about it, that in order for people to realize it’s not the same hospital we will have to take the name back,” Sister Brendalee Boisvert, congregation lead of the Sisters of St. Martha, said. “I don’t believe in MAiD, I believe in palliative care and that people need support, and St. Martha’s has a strong palliative care service. That’s our personal and congregational belief; however, I respect that some people are really pushing for that.”

As of September 30, the hospital will now be free to commit abortions and MAiD, further lending credence to the notion that this is what led the sisters to remove their name from the hospital.

Initially, the sisters tried to transfer ownership to Catholic Health International, saying the number of sisters was dwindling, and the remaining sisters were also getting older. “We are diminishing, our age is older, we don’t have a lot of people in health care right now; in such a field, you need to be part of it to have a voice,” Boisvert said.

Yet the NSHA refused to honor the existing mission agreement with another health care organization the way it had with the Sisters of St. Martha.

“The spirit is alive there, there’s so many staff and doctors that have lived these values, what we call the mission; it is in the DNA of the bricks and mortar,” Boisvert said. “There’s a way to live your life with dignity to all.”

Wellness Within, a pro-abortion non-profit organization, will help with committing abortions in the hospital, and praised the change. Dr. Martha Paynter, director of research for Wellness Within, told the Chronicle Herald:

Wellness Within is thrilled the path is now clear for health professionals at the Antigonish Regional Memorial Hospital to provide a full spectrum of reproductive health-care services, and for patients in the Antigonish region to no longer face unequal barriers to care.

The mission assurance agreement has long restricted the type of health care patients could access at the hospital — willing and able abortion care providers could not serve patients in their community and patients seeking medical assistance in dying could not receive this on site.

While a policy change in 2019 allowed for patient transfer to the affiliated St. Martha’s Centre for MAID, we are hopeful that the end of this agreement will allow patients to receive dignified health care at their regional hospital.

These changes leave us optimistic for the future.

The Bottom Line:

The intentional and targeted taking of innocent, vulnerable lives — whether preborn, elderly, disabled, or ill — is not dignified, nor is it health care.

This appears to be another assault on religious freedom, and the further spread of the culture of death in Canada.

Live Action News is pro-life news and commentary from a pro-life perspective.

Our work is possible because of our donors. Please consider giving to further our work of changing hearts and minds on issues of life and human dignity.

Contact editor@liveaction.org for questions, corrections, or if you are seeking permission to reprint any Live Action News content.

Guest Articles: To submit a guest article to Live Action News, email editor@liveaction.org with an attached Word document of 800-1000 words. Please also attach any photos relevant to your submission if applicable. If your submission is accepted for publication, you will be notified within three weeks. Guest articles are not compensated (see our Open License Agreement). Thank you for your interest in Live Action News!