Terminally ill and rapidly deteriorating, a Calgary woman suffering from ALS has died after being granted court permission to have doctors end her life — the first such ruling in Alberta.

In a written decision posted online Tuesday, Justice Sheilah Martin said the unidentified woman met the criteria for a constitutional exemption to the law prohibiting physician-assisted suicide.

The woman died Monday with her family at her side.

“My colleague and I were grateful and honoured to be able to help her,” Dr. Ellen Wiebe, a clinical professor at the University of British Columbia, said in an e-mail to The Canadian Press, adding the woman made the trip from Calgary to Vancouver the same day.

Wiebe is one of a group of doctors who have formed an organization called Hemlock AID to provide B.C. patients with information about and access to assisted death.

She has said she has no qualms about helping patients fulfil their final wish.

“I don’t consider giving someone a good death to be causing harm,” she said late last year. “That’s the main aim of helping somebody at the end of life, to help them have a good death.

“If what they want is to die sooner rather than later and do it comfortably, then that’s a good death for them.”

In her decision, Martin said the woman appeared ready to die, quoting from her statement to the court.

“I am not suffering from anxiety or depression or fear of death,” said the woman, known only by her initials, H.S. “I would like to pass away peacefully and am hoping to have physician-assisted death soon. I do not wish to have continued suffering and to die of this illness by choking. I feel that my time has come to go in peace.”

Martin heard submissions from the woman’s lawyer, Olivier Fuldauer, last week seeking an order allowing the procedure, the first such application in Alberta.

In the hearing, the woman, who could no longer speak, provided two affidavits detailing her condition and her wish to die.

“I note that Ms. S. attended the hearing of this application and it was clear to me from seeing her in the courtroom that she was fully engaged in and attentively following the proceedings,” Martin said.

“I am satisfied that Ms. S. fully and freely consents to the termination of her life.”

The retired health care worker was diagnosed with ALS in April 2013.

The degenerative neurological disease destroys motor neutrons and weakens most muscles of the body.

It is untreatable and terminal, Martin noted.

Postmedia asked to cover the application, but the judge agreed with Fuldauer that for privacy reasons the hearing should be closed.

“I heard from a representative of the media who argued the public’s right to know should be protected,” Martin said. “However, in the circumstances, I determined that Ms. S.’s privacy, dignity and autonomy were the more important interests and the hearing was held in camera,” she said.

“This application pertains to Ms. S.’s medical state and to the fundamental life choice she wishes to make.

“Nothing could be more personal and, in my view, the need to protect Ms. S.’s privacy outweighs the benefit of an open courtroom in the circumstances of this case.”

— With files from The Canadian Press