This family learned loved one had medically assisted death only after she was goneCheryl Hiebert chose to have a medically assisted death without telling anyone in her family. Her siblings and father say they desperately wish they’d had a chance to say goodbye, and think they should have been informed. But as Ontario’s chief coroner explains, the patient’s right to privacy comes first.

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Patients have a right to privacy on this matter, says Ontario’s chief coroner

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In fact, he said there are circumstances where a family might never know that their loved one had MAID. However, in cases where there is a full investigation, as there was for Cheryl, and not just the standard review, the coroner's office will, upon request, share that there was MAID with "first degree relatives," he said.

Asked if they were estranged from Cheryl, her family is adamant that they were not.

Though COVID-19 precautions had limited their in-person interactions, including plans they'd had for the 2020 holiday season, they did see each other a few months before her death.

"The last time I saw her was November," Cynthia said.

"We had a lovely walk on a trail and she was just in heaven because of the fall colours and she said, 'Oh, this is my favourite time of year.' We had a few fall walks."

'You cannot heal'

Cynthia said the family was planning a celebration for Cheryl's birthday, and that she called and got Cheryl's full voicemail inbox on what turned out to be the very day she died. 

"I'm so angry because you cannot heal. It has now been how many months and it's still haunting me, and I know it's still haunting my dad."

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Cynthia said she looks back on her mother's final days, with all the family gathered around her, and feels there was a beauty to that process that helped everyone with closure. There could have been a beauty to Cheryl's MAID death, too, she says. 

Cynthia said she understands that individuals need privacy rights, "but like anything that's good in the world, it can be abused."

"I think that this should be part of MAID — that we don't have the right to prevent it from happening, but we have the right to know so that we can say goodbye."

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Written by Brandie Weikle and Brian Goldman. Produced by Brian Goldman and Colleen Ross.

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