2023-08-12 07:59:04
Jacinto Batiz is an authoritative voice when it comes to assistance to patients with terminal illnesses. Not surprisingly, she was in charge of the Palliative Care Unit of the San Juan de Dios Hospital in Santurce for 25 years, and, after hanging up his care gown, continues to be linked to the same center as director of the Institute for Better Care. In addition, he is responsible for Bioethics of the Spanish Society of General and Family Physicians (Semg). His experience has now led him to publish the book Take care of me like this! Decalogue to die wella kind of guide that was created to alleviate “the difficulties that health professionals have to know the desires and values of the patient when he faces the end of his days”, according to Bátiz himself, who advocates improve health training and facilitate the “universal access” to palliative care so as not to “precipitate the death of the sufferer” through euthanasia.
The nature of Bátiz’s work, therefore, is twofold: on the one hand, it is “a guide for engage in an intimate and candid conversation on sensitive issues that occur in the final stages of life”, and, on the other, it aims to be an “help so that the sick can manifest how do you want to be cared for when the time comes to face his end.” “A empathic attitude by the health professional will lead us to understand how we can help the terminal patient with our science and our human approach. Palliative medicine is the medicine of accompaniment through compassion to welcome the patient who suffers and take charge of alleviating their suffering”, adds the doctor.
The book is structured in ten chapters. whose titles correspond to the decalogue referred to in the title, suggestive, to say the least. “Wishing to have a good death, wanting to die well, is a legitimate aspiration of human beings. For this reason, health professionals we are obligated to help our sick die well, to die without suffering. Behind the request “I want to die”, there is a background that means “I want to live or die in another way”explains Bátiz, who reiterates that the fundamental objective of palliative care is “to help humanize the process of dyingto take care of the life that the patient has left, relieving his suffering while death arrives in due time”.
“Palliative medicine is the medicine of accompaniment through compassion”
Universal palliative care versus euthanasia
The right to euthanasia is another of the topics addressed in the new work by Bátiz, of which it should be remembered that in Spain it is regulated by Organic Law 3/2021, of March 24, which entered into force on June 25 of that year. The doctor considers that, far from diminishing the importance or credibility of palliative care, euthanasia “gives it more value.” “Palliative care alleviates the suffering of the person, and euthanasia precipitates the death of the sufferer”, he points out before lamenting that, while “all the citizens of our country have access to the euthanasia law”, the same is not the case with palliative care: “Every year more than 80,000 people who do not have access to such care. Some universal and quality palliative care they would euthanasia unnecessaryexcept for those who did want this last option”.
The director of the Institute for Better Care respects the “free right to euthanasia”but he remarks: “There are those who are forced to request euthanasia because they feel a burden for their families who do not receive the benefits promised by law, as well as those who are not receiving adequate palliative care and continue to suffer, and before said suffering they consider that the only solution is death to stop suffering”. This, according to Bátiz, leads to cases in which the euthanasia route is resorted to too precipitation.
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Cover of the book ‘Take care of me like this! Decalogue to die well’.
Lack of specific training
The director of the Institute for Better Care does not hesitate to state that many of the problems arising from care for the terminally ill are the result of a “absolute” lack of training and awareness in palliative care. “Medical training should be more focused on the human dimension of the patient and in their needs as a person. The needs of human beings in relation to their health go beyond the simple model of curing the disease, where the doctor makes the diagnosis and prescribes the treatment”, he affirms. In this regard, he criticizes that “the majority” are still the medical schools that do not have a specific and compulsory subject in palliative care“an independent subject with sufficient allocation of credits and with its own evaluation system, as recommended by the European authorities and as required by the student confederations”.
This circumstance only leads, according to Bátiz, to the “lack of comprehensive care of people who are at the end of life and their families”, which is manifested in “inadequate attitudes of professionals” such as “abandonment, self-sufficiency and fear”, despite which, the doctor believes that there are reasons for hope: “I have been able to verify that professionals who have received postgraduate university training in palliative care and who have rotated in the Palliative Care Unit of our hospital appreciate the holistic view of the patient and having learned to take the family into account, which also made them reflect on their personal development and encouraged them to delve into the human aspects of their profession”.
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