“Mario” may die. The quadriplegic patient in the Marche region immobilized for 10 years, who had asked the hospital in the Marche for over a year to check his health conditions in order to legally access a lethal drug in Italy to put an end to his suffering, obtained the green light from the Ethics Committee. This was announced by the Coscioni Association, which after the sentence of the Constitutional Court 242 of 2019 on the case of Dj Fabo, fought so that, in compliance with the conditions indicated by the Council, assisted suicide, starting with the case of Mario, a 43-year-old truck driver. of Pesaro, immobilized in bed after a road accident, could also be carried out in Italy. That is, it could be considered non-punishable if those conditions including the irreversibility of the disease, the unsustainability of pain and of course the clear will of the patient, had been evident. Mario, invented name, will in fact be, as we read in the press release issued by the Coscioni Association, “the first patient to obtain the green light for medically assisted suicide in Italy”.
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The conditions
“The Ethics Committee has found that the man falls within the conditions established by the Council for access to assisted suicide. Now the methods of implementation remain to be identified”. These are the passages of the judicial battle that marks a historical page towards freedom of choice on the end of life in our country. “After the rejection of the Unica Regional Health Authority of Marche, a first and a second definitive decision by the Court of Ancona, two legal warnings to Asur Marche, Mario has finally obtained the opinion of the Ethics Committee, which following verification of his conditions through a group of medical specialists appointed by the regional health authority, he confirmed that Mario possesses the requisites for legal access to assisted suicide “. Mario after reading the opinion commented: “I feel lighter, I emptied myself of all the tension accumulated over the years”. Cared for by his mother, Mario (the name is a fictional one) could have gone to Switzerland, but he chose to fight to change the Italian legislation.
The doubts of the committee
The problem that is now highlighted and which could lead to a serious slowdown in the procedures for Mario, however, can be recognized in point six of the document of the Ethics Committee. While according to Asur Marche all the indications of the Council are respected, the dissonance is on the drug that Mario should ingest indicated by the Coscioni Association. The committee expressed a series of doubts both on the modality and on the dose of “Thiopentone”. And he affirms: it is not we who have to indicate an alternative modality, however. “It will be the Court of Ancona to decide whether the 43-year-old quadriplegic patient will be entitled to medically assisted suicide”, replied the Marche Region.
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The procedure
“We will provide, in collaboration with an expert, the details of the methods of self-administration of the drug suitable for Mario, based on his conditions. The sentence of the Constitutional Court places the sole task of verifying these methods on the part of the public structure of the National Health Service , subject to the opinion of the territorially competent ethics committee “, he declares Filomena Gallo, co-defender of Mario, Secretary of the Luca Coscioni Association. “The ethics committee has examined the report of the doctors who in recent weeks have certified the presence of the 4 conditions established by the Constitutional Court in the Capato-Dj Fabo ruling. That is, that Mario is kept alive by life-sustaining treatments. He is therefore suffering from an irreversible pathology, a source of physical or psychological suffering that he deems intolerable. He is fully capable of making free and informed decisions and that he does not intend to make use of other health treatments for pain and deep sedation. It is very serious that there is it took a long time, but finally, for the first time in Italy, an ethics committee has confirmed the existence of the conditions for assisted suicide for a sick person “.
“On Mario’s recommendation – continues Gallo -, we will now proceed to respond to Asur Marche and the ethics committee, for the part concerning the methods of implementing Mario’s choice, so that the Constitutional ruling and the decision of the Court of Ancona are respected. . We will provide, in collaboration with an expert, the details of the methods of self-administration of the drug suitable for Mario, based on his conditions “.
Assisted suicide consists in helping a dying patient to commit suicide, that is, to ingest the lethal drug alone. Unlike euthanasia in which the patient dies through a lethal injection that is given to him by a doctor.
“After the sentence of the Constitutional Court which has in effect legalized assisted suicide, no patient has so far been able to benefit from it, as the National Health Service hides behind the absence of a law that defines the procedures” he adds. Marco Cappato, Treasurer of the Luca Coscioni Association. “Mario is still moving forward thanks to the courts, thus making the blame game obvious”. The definition of the euthanasia drug administration process is now missing.
“This tortuous path – explains Cappato – is also due to the paralysis of the Parliament, which still three years after the request of the Constitutional Court is unable to vote even a law defining the procedures for applying the Court’s sentence. The result of this blame game institutional is that people like Mario are forced to endure even a judicial ordeal, in addition to the physical and psychological one due to their condition. It is possible, however, that the decision of the Ethics Committee will soon allow Mario to obtain what he has been asking for 14 months “.
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