2024-04-23 19:35:57
Heard on the second day of the work of the special commission of the National Assembly on the bill on the end of life, the hospital federations warned, Tuesday, April 23, the deputies once morest the concrete implementation of this text and the reluctance of certain caregivers.
As it stands, the government text provides that certain patients suffering from an incurable pathology threatening their lives “short or medium term” may request assistance in dying. This possibility will be reserved for adult patients, born in France or residing in the country for a long time, and able to clearly express their wishes. A doctor, nurse or a volunteer can administer the lethal substance if the patient is unable to do so.
According to the bill, if a patient wishes to kill themselves, caregivers must also be present to intervene in the event of difficulty. That « pose question »SO “that a certain number of caregivers are quite opposed to their direct involvement”, noted Bertrand Guidet, president of the ethics committee of the French Hospital Federation (public hospitals). If the patient “does not feel capable of taking the lethal dose”or “if he vomits his treatment”what attitude to adopt?, he concretely questioned the 71 deputies of the special committee.
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For Béatrice Noëllec, director of institutional relations of the Federation of Private Hospitalization, “we must respond in this debate to the concerns of the medical community”currently under tension, by giving it “guarantees”she added.
Towards a “collective conscience clause”?
Elisabeth Hubert, former Minister of Public Health in 1995 and president of the Federation of Home Hospitalization Establishments, opposed this part of the bill. Many establishments in under-dense areas operate with very low staff numbers. “What will we do if (…) all refuse to be associated with active assistance in dying? We will be forced to apply the law, but how? »she asked.
Olivier Guérin, medical advisor to the Federation of Solidarity Private Hospitals and Personal Assistance Establishments, proposed “to bring out” the possibility of a « clause de conscience collective » at the level of a care team. He highlighted another ” worry “ : the vague notion of engaged vital prognosis “in the medium term, extremely complex” to define. He also called for psychological monitoring to be put in place for all ” voluntary “ required to administer a lethal product, and to exclude nursing homes from places where assistance in dying will be practiced, with regard to “community life” and connections between residents.
Monday April 22, at the opening of the debates, the Minister of Health, Catherine Vautrin, defended a bill which is not “not a new right nor a new freedom but a possible path”with some “strict conditions”which she recalled, as so many “protective guarantees for the people concerned and caregivers”. And, according to her, “no one will impose assisted dying on anyone” to reassure caregivers.
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The 71 members of the special commission will continue their hearings in the coming days with worship on Wednesday, associations on Thursday before receiving psychologists, philosophers, sociologists, former ministers and parliamentarians, such as Alain Claeys and Jean Leonetti, authors of the latest law on the end of life. Then, from May 13, the committee will begin to study the twenty-one articles of the text and the amendments tabled, before the text is examined in the Hemicycle from May 27.
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