The end-of-life debate continues to stir up health care workers. A sequence ended with the restitution, on Sunday April 2, of the report of the citizens’ convention on the end of life which decided for a “active assistance in dying”, under conditions. Another opened with the announcement by Emmanuel Macron, on Monday 3, of a bill on the subject “by the end of summer”to set up a “French model”. And many caregivers – those, in any case, who give voice – continue to wonder ” which place “, “what responsibility” will be theirs, if the legal framework changes.
This is the case of the fourteen organizations, associations and learned societies, led by the French Society for Support and Palliative Care (SFAP), which, in a press release on Sunday, defended a position already formalized in a previous ethical opinion, mi -FEBRUARY : “The legalization of a form of medically administered death would amount to subverting the very notion of care as it is commonly accepted today”, they write. Among these organizations, the SFAP, therefore, but also the National Federation of Home Hospitalization Establishments or the National Association of Coordinating Doctors in Ehpad and the medico-social sector. Enough to represent, according to their calculations, some 800,000 caregivers.
And 800,000 caregivers on alert: if these organizations welcome, in a second text on Monday, the presidential commitment to palliative care – Emmanuel Macron has promised a “ten-year plan” –, they underline, at the same time, the “very negative signal” that active assistance in dying would send to the most vulnerable, dependent people, with cognitive or psychological disorders, and for children.
“Beware of legislative construction”
Entering the debate for the first time, the Association of Directors Serving the Elderly calls for “emergency financial measures” before any passing of a law. Emphasizing two figures: 80% of people who die each year are over 80 years old. “Do we want to kill the elderly to save money? » : the question, in the form of a provocation, serves as the title of the press release issued on Monday as well. Even if the Head of State, when receiving the members of the convention at the Elysée Palace, drew “red lines”: “You rightly insist that active assistance in dying must never be carried out for a social reason, to respond to the isolation which sometimes can make a patient feel guilty who knows he is condemned to term”, he told them, also closing the door to any assistance in dying for minors.
You have 55.76% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.