She was suffering from an irreversible disease and had been asking for access to voluntary assisted dying for a year. You did it first by contacting the relevant local health authority, then, later… Already a subscriber? Log in here!
SPECIAL OFFER
BEST OFFER
ANNUAL
79,99€
19€
For 1 year
CHOOSE NOW
MONTHLY
6,99€
€1 PER MONTH
For 6 months
CHOOSE NOW
SPECIAL OFFER
SPECIAL OFFER
MONTHLY
6,99€
€1 PER MONTH
For 6 months
CHOOSE NOW
– or –
Subscribe to the subscription by paying with Google
Subscribe
SPECIAL OFFER
Read the article and the entire website ilmessaggero.it
1 Year for €9.99 €89.99
Subscribe with Google
or
€1 per month for 6 months
Automatic Renewal. Deactivate whenever you want.
Unlimited access to articles on the site and app The 7.30am Good Morning newsletter The 6pm newsletter for the day’s updates Podcasts from our signatures Insights and live updates
She was suffering from an irreversible disease and had been asking for access to voluntary assisted dying for a year. She did so first by turning to the relevant local health authority, then, after a stalemate, to the Court of Trieste, which ordered the start of checks. Last November 28th she died at her home in Trieste, at the age of 55, after self-administering a lethal drug supplied, something that had never happened before her, by the National Health System. She is the first person in Italy, as the Luca Coscioni association underlines today, “to have had access to assisted suicide with the complete assistance of the NHS”, which provided the lethal drug and a support doctor. A battle won for the woman, whose personal details were not disclosed by her own will but who indicated Anna as her fictitious name, who in her last message reiterated that she had loved life and then had chosen freely: “Today I am free, it would have been a real torture not to have the freedom to choose.”
Sibilla Barbieri, assisted suicide in Switzerland. What happened? He “did not meet the requirements” for the ASL 1 of Rome. The will in a video
Multiple sclerosis
The woman from Trieste was suffering from secondary progressive multiple sclerosis: a diagnosis received in 2010. As highlighted by the medical reports – and reconstructed by the Coscioni association that followed the case – Anna expressed herself with a feeble and hypophonic voice, but she was alert and lucid. She was completely dependent on assistance. On 4 November 2022 you sent the Giuliano Isontina University Health Authority a request to verify your conditions to access assisted dying. After months of waiting without answers, she had filed a complaint with the Carabinieri for refusal/omission of official acts towards the health authority and presented an urgent appeal before the civil judge. The Court of Trieste therefore requested that the Company carry out checks and investigations into the case. In September the green light came from the multidisciplinary medical commission to access assisted suicide.
First time
To Anna «the lethal drug and the equipment – explains the association – were provided by the NHS and a doctor identified by the health company, on a voluntary basis, took steps to support the action requested within the scope and within the limits established by the precautionary order pronounced by the Court of Trieste on 4 July and therefore without directly intervening in the administration of the drug, an action which remained the exclusive responsibility of the woman”. She is the third person, followed by the Luca Coscioni association, to access voluntary assisted dying in Italy, and the fifth to have been given the green light. The first in Friuli Venezia Giulia. «Anna is also the first sick person who has seen recognition, by the doctors in charge of carrying out checks on the conditions, that continuous assistance to the person is vital assistance, as well as the non-exclusive mechanical dependence guaranteed through the use of support ventilator during the hours of night sleep”, states today Filomena Gallo, lawyer and secretary of Coscioni.
The end of life
«The right to choose at the end of life is slowly being established, despite obstructionism and ideological resistance that are increasingly distant from popular sentiment», adds Marco Cappato, treasurer of Coscioni, who is promoting the regional «Free Now» campaign so that the Regions approve a law that introduces certain times and procedures for accessing medically assisted suicide. In the meantime, the dem deputy, Debora Serracchiani, has also presented a bill to the Chamber to address an issue “required by people’s consciences as well as by constitutional sentences”.
Read the full article
on Il Messaggero