CANADA: In April, a Quebec court ordered a Montreal hospital to keep a woman on life support, allowing her husband time to arrange for her to be sent home to Nigeria to die.
The McGill University Health Centre had earlier sought permission to stop all treatments for the 42-year-old woman and provide palliative care after concluding she had no chance of neurological recovery. Her husband opposed this decision, asking the hospital to keep her alive until the end of their children’s school year, allowing time for her transfer to Nigeria.
Court documents revealed that the Nigerian-born lawyer moved to Montreal with her two children for graduate school in 2021 and had no health issues until she suddenly fell ill and collapsed in a hospital emergency room in July 2023. She experienced “a prolonged cardiorespiratory arrest, requiring resuscitation,” according to the document.
Her husband, who flew from Nigeria to be at her side, argued, “My wife had no family in Quebec and hadn’t planned to stay here. If given the choice, she would have wanted to return to Nigeria.”
The hospital and a doctor contended that repatriation was not in the patient’s best interest and would likely cost the husband more than $150,000. They also pointed out that “some might argue that, in the meantime, another patient is being deprived of a place and care in hospital,” as stated in the court decision.
Superior Court Justice Florence Lucas sided with the husband, writing in the recently published decision that the benefits of the hospital’s plan did not outweigh the woman’s fundamental right to live, be cared for, and pass away in her home country. “The right to life and the right to die with dignity in one’s country are paramount,” Lucas stated.
According to court documents, the transfer had been scheduled for June 28.
The McGill University Health Centre, citing confidentiality, declined to provide further details on the case. In a statement, the hospital said, “Resorting to judicial arbitration is a last resort when the hospital and patient representative cannot resolve an impasse through other means.”
