The Quebec Superior Court in April ordered Montreal’s McGill University Health Centre to keep a woman on life support in order to give her husband the opportunity to arrange for her to be sent home to die in Nigeria.
Earlier this year, the hospital requested authorization to stop all treatment of the 42-year-old woman and provide her with palliative care after concluding that she had no chance of neurological recovery.
Her husband opposed the change, asking the hospital to keep his wife alive long enough for her to be transferred home to Nigeria at the end of their children’s school year.
Superior Court Judge Florence Lucas sided with the husband, writing in a recently published decision that the benefits of the hospital’s plan did not outweigh the wife’s fundamental right to live, be cared for and die in her home country.
Court documents indicate that the Nigerian-born woman moved to Montreal with her two children to attend graduate school in 2021 and had no health problems until she suddenly fell ill and collapsed in July 2023.
Lawyers representing the hospital and the husband in the case did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation of what occurred following the court decision and whether the transfer had taken place.
– This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on July 16, 2024.