He thought the record, every time, to return to question the political consciousness and on the destiny of human life and self-determination. Because the law does not arrive, and because even if it came in the form of the bill being debated in the Senate would be many who disagree.
The record or the self-organization. These days are now over eighty up and down the boot records to deposit their wills, and municipalities that host them are joining in a common front “of the local league for the registry of advance directives of treatment.” The goal is to “protect” Dat expressed by citizens in the municipalities, to have legal effect even if the bill passed the end of life as it is. The policy is now busy otherwise, of course. But you never know.
He thought the record, every time, to return to question the conscience. It happened today with the news of suicide chosen by Lucio Magri who went to Switzerland to die.
As this summer, with Anna, 48, a Jehovah’s Witness. Suffering from a severe degenerative disease, asked the judge for permission not to be subject, if necessary, to life-saving treatment. While Italy only goes nell’afa of August, the magistrate of Treviso, Clarice Di Tullio, said yes. Anna wanted to not use life-saving drugs and treatments. “I do not want my life to be prolonged if the doctors are fairly certain that my condition is hopeless.” And so be it. While almost three years have passed since that November 5, 2008 when in Modena, Italy for the first time, another court had issued a decree appointing the administrator of support in favor of a patient if that, in future, had been unable of sound mind. Applying the Italian law, the law Cendon.
Euthanasia and assisted suicide. It is not Italy, but the nearby Switzerland. Here the law allows – in 1941 – assisted suicide, if paid “without selfish motives,” and only in a passive way. A referendum in May, asked the inhabitants of the canton of Zurich – two questions – to prohibit or limit the recourse to suicide for non-residents. The response of the Swiss was a double no. The next year, to comment on similar issues, will be the Canton of Vaud. In the days of the referendum in Zurich, Italy commented on the data of a Eurispes Report according to which six out of ten Italians say yes to euthanasia. A share, that of those in favor, 1 less, 2% from last year. Contrary, in 2011, rose to 24.2% against 21.7% in 2010.
The Italians who cross the border every year, never to return are in their thirties. And the trend is growing. They face a charge of no more than 3 thousand euros. 200 is the total number of people who resort to assisted suicide in Switzerland, and two groups who practice assisted suicide: the ExInternazional Dignitas in Zurich and Bern. 1138 people, according to data from Dignitas, which in 2010 asked to be “accompanied” to death. Most are from neighboring Germany (592), and in general the percentage of foreigners who chose Switzerland for his last journey up, over the years.
EX International presents itself as “a team of highly motivated graduates and professionals, specializing in various disciplines, including theology, law and journalism.” The association offers advice to members and the accompanying “in human and non-bureaucratic way to their eventual practice of freedom of death”. Many documents are necessary for a “free self-determined death,” assisted by EX International. First of all the medical certificate, of course, with a diagnosis and course of disease. Then the card association and, if not accompanied by relatives in Switzerland, a medical report showing the physical characteristics or an overview of the test teeth and calligraphy. Do not miss the request – optional – a statement of approval of a family member or a contact person and, of course (mandatory) of the living will.
Emilio Coveri Exit is the president of Italy, Center for Studies and Documentation on euthanasia. The association was founded in Turin in 1996: since then fighting in Italy because it is regulated euthanasia. It provides information to those who decide to go to Switzerland. “We made a deal with the two Swiss who recognize our living wills,” he says. The trend is increasing, especially from Italy. “I can see also from the inscriptions, increased by 100% in six months. Most of the members has the intention to apply for assisted suicide with Dignitas International or Ex. “
The assisted suicide exists today in Switzerland, Luxembourg and Belgium. In the Netherlands euthanasia is active. And in the U.S.? In Oregon – report Coveri – “They are doing what they do Dignitas. Are helping the Mexicans and North Americans if they want to have a dignified death. And thank goodness they do. “
And in Italy? The photograph of the end of life, from us, is in black and white. The data are few, and talk of an underwater world that remains so over time, despite the need for planning health policies. The Ministry of Health refers to the data of the working group – composed of neurologists, intensivists and other specialists – in place since late 2008 and chaired by former Undersecretary Eugenia Roccella. The text was used for the agreement on the vegetative and minimally conscious states, concluded between the Government Unified Conference, regional, provincial and local governments. According to the research, in the period 2002-2006 5344 patients were discharged with a diagnosis of persistent vegetative state. But the data obtained – feel the same workgroup – may “underestimate the high number of patients in a vegetative state and minimally conscious state.” And now there are no more detailed data, net of initiatives to study groups of scientific societies and individual researchers.
And then there’s the White Paper, which gives voice to the associations that represent family members. And in which the former Secretary reiterates that Roccella, from a scientific standpoint, “we still know too little of these states and for this reason it becomes essential to the principle of caution.” It was not, ultimately, “to measure the degree of consciousness in man,” or “we never landed on a shared definition of” conscience. ‘” What is known and shared by the entire scientific community, the secular and Catholic, is that “40% of the diagnosis turns out to be wrong.” That “in some cases have been reported cases of conscience” and that “some people feel pain in a vegetative state.” Words – those of Roccella and politics in general – but, according to the scientific and medical communities, suffer from a certain “ideological flavor.”
The reality that every day in Italy, the accounts are at the forefront of the doctors in intensive care, is called “withdrawal treatment”. To take the picture, in this case, a 2005 study conducted in 84 intensive care and intensive care departments throughout Italy. The study was signed by a team of medical epidemiology at the Mario Negri Bergamo, directed by Guido Bertolini. A search term then a year now and the epidemiologist has every intention to lead again. “Probably next year. A claim shall the same intensivists, “he says.
The 2005 study is clear: every year, intensive care wards of the peninsula, about 18 thousand deaths occur after doctors have discontinued therapy unnecessary. It is 62% of deaths, in other words. The study, conducted with the GiViTI (Italian Group for the evaluation of interventions in the ICU), examined 3,800 deaths in 2005. Bertolini helps bring clarity in a world too often told with confusion. “The cases of withdrawal therapy in intensive care are very different from the Welby case,” says the doctor. “It is incorrect to say that these patients have been helped to die by your doctor.” In the ICU, in fact, “70% of patients arrive with one or more organ failure.” Without intensive care, will die within a few hours.
“What you do in these wards is” stealing time to death “- I call it – replacing the lost function with the help of machines,” explains Bertolini. And that “time away to death” is used to treat the patient’s condition or give the body time to recover, in some cases with the possibility that the recovery is complete. “This is a strategy that works in 80% of patients,” continued the doctor in Milan. “In the remaining percentage, unfortunately, this strategy does not work.” The process of dying is in fact slowed down thanks to science, but the parameters worsen. “In these cases, to keep the intensive care becomes just an extension of the suffering of the patient, perhaps for a few days or few weeks,” explains Bertolini. Sure, there are situations in which the picture is clear, in which the other is not. Still others “where the risk is to enter a vegetative state”: one in which Eluana Englaro has been living for 17 years, since he was 20 years.
When the intensivist decided to give up, “it does based on two assumptions,” says Bertolini. The first: when the patient is still dying. “It is a duty to the patient to discontinue treatment,” says Bertolini. The other is to avoid such situations, precisely, that of Eluana. “And here of course the decision is difficult,” says the doctor. But it uses what is the “basis of any code of conduct: self-determination of the patient. Whether conscious or not it is. “
And then you get to research data: 62% of deaths in intensive care is preceded by some form of withdrawal therapy. That the suspension of critical care. Of about 150 thousand patients each year come to these centers a fifth – about 30 thousand people – do not survive. And in about 10% of cases the choice is made, “reconstructing the patient’s will, by comparison with its history and the family,” concludes Guido Bertolini. Certainly not “sweet death”, in short, but management of everyday life shared by all doctors. Even those Catholics or working in Catholic institutions.
Translation by Google Translate