Nova Scotia’s only Catholic hospital will lose its religious identity at the end of this month.

And with the ditching of its Catholic affiliation, the hospital will begin killing babies in abortions and euthanize patients.

The facility was founded by nuns more than a century ago, but St. Martha’s Regional Hospital will become Antigonish Memorial Regional Hospital on October 1 after the Mission Assurance Agreement expires September 30. The Sisters of St. Martha, who founded the hospital in 1906, are withdrawing their name and ending their sponsorship role.

Provincial officials say the publicly funded hospital’s services and policies will then more closely align with those of other secular hospitals across Nova Scotia.

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The 1996 agreement, signed when the sisters transferred ownership to the province, had protected the hospital’s Catholic mission and barred killing babies in abortion. Medically assisted dying, initially prohibited on campus, has been available since 2019 in a separate building.

The expiration of the agreement removes those remaining religious restrictions on abortions and "assisted suicide" inside the hospital itself.

Health and Wellness Minister Michelle Thompson announced in March that the province would not accept another Catholic sponsor after the sisters said they could no longer continue in that role.

"When the current agreement concludes, the services and policies at St. Martha’s will more closely align with all other hospitals across Nova Scotia," the Department of Health and Wellness said. Thompson has said the government wants all hospitals to have the same services, policies and procedures.

The sisters proposed Catholic Health International, based in New Brunswick, to carry on the mission. The government declined.

Sister Brendalee Boisvert, congregational leader of the Sisters of St. Martha, said the congregation decided after discernment and prayer that it was time to step back because of aging membership and fewer sisters in health care.

"We decided as sisters, after we took a discernment time, prayed and thought about it, that in order for people to realize it’s not the same hospital we will have to take the name back," she said.

Boisvert, who opposes euthanasia, added: "I don’t believe in MAID, I believe in palliative care and that people need support, and St. Martha’s has a strong palliative care service."

She called the loss of Nova Scotia’s only Catholic hospital "a great loss."

"People have come to St. Martha’s knowing they will receive good care and be treated with respect," she said. "The difference was that every month we would talk about the mission, how we’re living it and how we can do it better. I don’t think the government has any idea what the loss will be when you lose that kind of focused attention."

Bishop Wayne Kirkpatrick of the Diocese of Antigonish expressed deep concern in a March 7 letter, describing more than a century of "Gospel-inspired care rooted in compassion, dignity and respect for life at every stage." He wrote that Catholic health care bears witness to "the inviolable dignity of every human person" and the duty "to serve and defend human life at every stage."

Without the agreement, he said, "the Catholic ethical framework that has guided the hospital’s mission will diminish."

Fr. John Barry, a senior priest of the diocese, wrote to the sisters that the government’s refusal undermines "the very essential reasons for our basic existence. Above all, the sanctity of human life from its very inception, ongoing care and provision to its natural end. St. Martha Hospital has constantly and consistently, from its very beginning, upheld and promoted these principles."