Samantha, we need a new medical opinion. Full auditorium to talk about the end of life

Law 219, which indicates the path for the thirty-year-old in a coma, is still little known. Perenzin: Municipalities unprepared

FELTRE. A new medical step will be needed to begin the end-of-life procedure for thirty-year-old Samantha D’Incà in an irreversible coma. This is foreseen by the path traced by the tutelary judge based on law 219 of 2017 on the living will. The law that last night was the focus of a participatory discussion in the Canossian auditorium, for the Mano Amica forum dedicated to the living will and the possibility, still too little known and applied in the Feltre area, to leave precise provisions on health treatments that they accept or refuse if they are no longer able to decide.

The judge’s decision

Although both the prosecutor and the tutelary judge have already authorized the interruption of treatment for the maintenance of Samantha’s life, including nutrition and artificial hydration, the device issued by the tutelary judge on Thursday evening provides for a further passage by the team doctor who takes care of the girl.

The reason is strictly linked to Law 219 of 2017, which recognizes the right not only to refuse medical treatments, but also to revoke at any time (in whole or in part) the consent already given; while it is expressed differently for non-capable subjects. In fact, whoever exercises parental responsibility, the guardian or the support administrator of minors or incapable ones, has only the power to give or deny informed consent, not to revoke it.

Therefore, only on the occasion of the proposal for a health treatment formulated by the doctor is the support administrator called to express or refuse consent. In recent months, when Samantha’s case was still being investigated, the previous support administrator had given consent for the treatments to which the girl is subjected, a consent that cannot therefore be withdrawn unless changes occur in the clinical picture. .

Unfortunately Samantha is subject to frequent crises and the same Ulss 1 Ethics Committee has highlighted the persistence of complications and episodes related to artificial nutrition, with continuous risks of severe aggravation.

It is in the context of this unstable clinical picture that doctors could ask the support administrator – the father Giorgio, appointed on Thursday by the judge – for consent to life-sustaining therapies, a consent that at this point could be denied, giving the go-ahead. to the interruption of care, according to well-identified procedures through a palliative path.

The Mano Amica forum

The need to make law 219 more known and to make it fully applicable was just last night the theme of the focus with the population organized by Mano Amica. A project that the meritorious association dedicates to assistance to the terminally ill and their families had launched before the case of Samantha turned on the spotlight in Feltrino on the end of life.

“We cannot wait until it is too late to express our wishes”, was the appeal of the president Paolo Biacoli, who in comparison to the Canossian auditorium called the Ulss Dolomiti CEO, Maria Grazia Carraro, who spoke by teleconference, but also the president of the Ethics Committee – the jurist Lucia Busatta – and the head of palliative care, Roberta Perin, with the director of the District Alessio Gioffredi.

“The municipalities are the recipients of the Dat but are often not adequately prepared to receive them”, underlined the mayor of Feltre, Paolo Perenzin. “And the tragedy is that citizens find themselves not knowing who to get advice and support from. Those few who have so far managed to get to the bottom of the procedure have done so because they have often turned to a notary or a consultant ».

The doctor and municipal councilor Mauro Fantinel, Perenzin said, is among those who are working to try to make the Municipality of Feltre make progress in this direction. “We must move forward because this law is a law of civilization and must be applied,” he said. «The help of realities like Mano Amica is welcome, because there is a need for a collective path. We try to bring some significant results in the coming months ».