this b.c. woman was offered maid before other treatments. she said no to death and went on to climb a volcano
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when she was taken by ambulance to a vancouver hospital with lower back pain the likes of which she’d never experienced, the last thing 84-year-old miriam lancaster said she was thinking of was “cashing my chips.”
lancaster had a fractured sacrum, a break in a bone at the base of the spine that’s connected to the pelvis. she and her daughter, jordan weaver, allege that, while still in the emergency department, a young doctor at vancouver general hospital (vgh) raised the option of a medically assisted death.
“(the doctor) came in and said, ‘miriam, i understand you’re in a lot of pain. we can offer you maid.’ just like that,” weaver said.
“my mother and i are practicing catholics. we would never accept maid under any circumstances.”
only when they answered with a firm “no” were other treatment options raised, the family said.
“the doctor said, ‘well, you could get rehab, but it will be a long road, and it will be very difficult; we don’t know what to expect,’” weaver said.
lancaster chose rehabilitation. she was admitted to hospital and, after 10 days at vgh, followed by “three weeks and a bit” at ubc hospital’s rehab program, recovered well, she said. six weeks after the fracture last april, she walked her daughter down the aisle at her wedding. she later travelled to cuba (before the u.s. oil blockade), mexico and, most recently, walked and rode on horseback up guatemala’s pacaya volcano.
“my mother is not frail. she climbed a volcano in guatemala,” weaver said. “she’s a dynamo. she reads books. she goes to the theatre. she’s alert. she takes the public bus on her own. she’s active. her life is valuable to the people who care for her.”
in a video posted on x, lancaster said she was taken aback when she said maid was raised in the vgh emergency department last april. “that was the last thing on my mind. i just wanted to find out why i was in pain,” she said.
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“i did not want to die.”
whether doctors should initiate a discussion around maid unsolicited, without patients first bringing it up, has become a subject of growing debate. alberta is seeking to prohibit doctors from raising the topic of maid as an option under its sweeping last resort termination of life act.
“many maid providers act in good faith,” dr. ramona coelho, a member of the ontario chief coroner’s maid death review committee wrote last month in a letter published by the british medical journal.
“the concern is not only individual intention, but that systems shape clinical behaviour,” coelho said. “when death is offered alongside, and sometimes before, comprehensive care, medicine drifts from its commitment to healing and accompaniment through suffering.”
the video of lancaster, posted on x by euthanasia opponent amanda achtman, has been viewed more than 312,000 times.
in a statement to national post, vancouver coastal health (vch) said it “is committed to the health and safety of everyone in our care.
“while vch is limited in what we can say due to patient privacy and confidentiality, we are not aware of a conversation between the patient and emergency department physicians at vancouver general hospital related to medical assistance in dying (maid),” the statement said.
under current maid guidelines, “staff may consider bringing up maid based on their clinical judgement, provided they possess the necessary knowledge and skills to do so,” vch added.
while staff are responsible for answering questions when patients bring up maid, emergency department “staff are not generally in a position to raise the topic of maid with patients.”
“we strongly encourage those who are concerned about their care to connect with our patient care quality office.”
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canada’s maid law requires two medical practitioners to agree that the person has a serious disease or disability causing unbearable physical or psychological suffering and is in an advanced and irreversible state of decline.
lancaster isn’t an activist. in an interview, she said she didn’t lodge a complaint with the hospital because “i wanted to forget about the whole incident and just get on with my life. i really didn’t want to hang people out to dry.”
her husband died from metastatic cancer in 2023. ten days before his death, he collapsed at home and was rushed by ambulance to vancouver general hospital, where lancaster said a doctor told the family he was required by law to offer her husband maid.
“of course, he turned it down,” she said. “we are churchgoers. we both are ready to go when the lord calls us, and that’s what happened to him.”
“i had already seen that maid gets presented pretty quickly, in this day and age. but i was a lot healthier. he had cancer,” lancaster said. she was also under the impression that doctors are required to raise maid, which she said she only recently learned isn’t the case.
she stressed that she was well cared for at both the vgh and ubc hospital. “i am making the most of the good work the hospitals did do in seeing that my spine was repaired,” mostly through bed rest and gradual exercise, she said. “much of the repair is the body doing the repair, because they can’t do surgery on a spinal problem like i had.
“so, again, no complaints about how i was looked after, with the exception of the maid invitation.”
she said she agreed to share her story after hearing achtman describe similar experiences during a talk she gave on the catholic perspective on maid at a victoria church in early march.
lancaster said many of her friends are pro-maid. “i have friends who have used maid.” while she and her daughter have their own strong views about maid, “it is a legal option in canada that may work for some people, and i respect that,” weaver said.
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“it’s just the timing,” said lancaster, a retired piano teacher. “especially coming into emergency — a patient is already upset and disoriented and wishing they weren’t there.
“to give them a decision, a life-terminating decision, when they are in this condition, that’s what i object to.”
miriam lancaster in havana, cuba, in september 2025, left, and having afternoon tea at the empress hotel, in victoria, b.c., in march 2026.
courtesy miriam lancaster
a 2024 survey by angus reid in partnership with cardus found that canadians are equally split on whether people would feel pressured to choose death if a doctor raised maid with them.
guidance from canada’s maid assessors and providers states that doctors may have a professional duty to bring up “care options that may relieve suffering” for people with a grievous and irremediable illness, disease or disability. the intention isn’t to induce, persuade or convince, the document states, but to inform.
“but to be offered maid right off the bat for a non-life-threatening condition? it was a matter of pain management; the bone would eventually heal,” weaver said.
“just because someone is 84 does not mean they’re ready to go on the scrap heap of life. it’s an insult to seniors.”
lancaster said the pain hit the moment she got out of bed one morning last april and put her foot on the floor. the bone had fractured not from a fall, but from her underlying osteoporosis.
“jordan came into the room. she heard me call out in pain. she’d never seen me looking like that, so she phoned the ambulance.”
lancaster was taken to the er around 10 a.m. she said that it’s “my recollection” that the subject of maid was brought up early, “really about the first thing.”
however, she was in pain and immediately given strong painkillers.
“my mother’s story, and i respect it’s her story, is that as soon as she went in, she was offered maid,” weaver said. “it was a terrible day for her — she was in shock, she was in pain and she was heavily drugged.” she was also back in the same emergency room where her husband had been taken before he died.
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weaver’s recollection is that they had been in emergency for “multiple hours” and had received the diagnosis of the fractured sacrum “when a doctor came to us to offer care options. and the first option was maid.
“only when we said no to maid, did they offer admission to acute care at vgh, followed by ubc for rehab,” weaver said.
“it was pretty demeaning to be offered maid immediately, as a care plan,” she said.
“i’m not here to point fingers at medical professionals and individuals. it’s the culture in general that disturbs me,” weaver said.
“she was still in emergency; she had not yet been put on the ward. it was as if they didn’t want to put her on the ward. as if she wasn’t worth being treated. is this what we have come to?”
hundreds posted comments on social media in response to the video.
“i won’t get into how unsurprised i am that this happened at vgh,” wrote policy analyst and disability rights activist gabrielle peters. “i’m so happy that miriam told them to get lost. you shouldn’t need to be a spitfire like miriam not to be put to death but in my experience the quiet, nice and less confident folks struggle in these situations.”
others said “being offered something is very different from encouraging, pushing, menacing, etc. people wanted (maid) to be readily available, so let’s make adjustments and keep things in perspective.”
“my only knowledge of anyone receiving maid comes from a hospital in (northern) alberta,” saskatchewan farmer pat kunz wrote. “he had terminal cancer. he had to ask! staff there are not allowed to initiate the conversation.”
but weaver said her mother was not in an end-of-life situation.
“what’s next? if we’re going to euthanize people who are in pain, if we’re going to euthanize seniors, where does it stop?”
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