Manitoba Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen says no hospital in the province will be forced to provided assisted death. He notes two faith-based hospitals in Winnipeg have already indicated they won't offer the procedure. 

Manitoba Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen.

"There have been concerns from a number of hospitals and facilities who have said; We don't feel that we can, given our history or the nature of our facilities, have those medically-assisted deaths in our facilities. What I've said to them, as the Minister of Health, is we will not require you to have those procedures in your facilities, but you do have to have a policy, so that when somebody asks for one, that there can be a hand-off of care to another facility."

Goertzen says this is no different than other specialties. For example, he says heart procedures are only available at select hospitals and the same thinking will apply to assisted death. He adds this policy complies with a Supreme Court ruling that legalized the procedure.

"The Supreme Court has said that medically-assisted dying is legal in Canada and has to be accessible but I don't believe they said it has to be universally accessible. This is in keeping with that. It's also in keeping with the right balance of protecting individual facilities and individual objections to procedures of medical assistance in dying but also adhering to the court decision."