The Hamilton Chapter was founded in 2015 to support the work of Dying With Dignity Canada, and to promote public education and advocacy locally through end-of-life planning workshops and speaker events.

In June 2017, we held a successful community event that featured author Sandra Martin, who has written extensively about Canada’s right-to-die movement; ethicist Andrea Frolic, who leads Hamilton Health Sciences' medical assistance in dying program; and Dying With Dignity Canada’s CEO Shanaaz Gokool. More than 70 people were in attendance.

We also respond to requests from the community for speakers or panel participants, and we participate in the Dying With Dignity Canada independent witnessing program.

Chapter coordinators:

Gabriela Luchsinger Beaumont came to Canada from Chile in 1974. She is a retired social worker, who has worked in in-patient psychiatry at McMaster Medical Centre and with in-patient Geriatric Psychiatry Unit at the former Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital (now St. Joseph's Hospital Mountain Site). She also worked in the Palliative Care Unit at St. Peter's Hospital and for the Alzheimer Society of Hamilton and Halton. She has volunteered with DWDC since 2013.

Yvonne Cunnington is a retired magazine journalist with an interest in health policy and patient rights, especially issues relating to patient autonomy and freedom of choice in the face of serious illness and death. She also contributes to DWDC’s Defenders of Dignity monthly-giving program.

Sharon MacQueen spent 22 years working in three Ontario hospitals as Director of their Education Departments. After retirement, she joined Friends in Grief, an organization that provides support to people who are grieving the loss of a loved one. She joined Dying With Dignity Canada because of her strong beliefs in personal choice and autonomy in end-of-life decisions.

Contact information: Email us at hamilton@dyingwithdignity.ca or call 289-775-9516.

Find us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HamiltonDWD/