Finally. In the pipes for months, promised by Emmanuel Macron in April 2023 and suddenly arrested for dissolution last summer, the aid will be voted on Tuesday afternoon in the National Assembly.
The text defended by the Memb Membier Falorni Modem defines the precise conditions of assisted suicide that “consists in authorizing and accompanying a person who expressed the request to resort to a lethal substance, under the conditions and in accordance with the methods provided.”
An affection “that involves the vital prognosis”
The discussions have often been bitter in the hemicycle to accurately define who will access it. First conditions to be met: be at least 18 years old AND Maintain French nationality or reside stable and regularly in France.
Another criterion: “be with a serious and incurable condition, whatever the cause, that Involve the vital prognosisIn an advanced phase, characterized by entering an irreversible process marked by the worsening of the health of the sick person that affects their quality of life or terminal. “
Specifically, these terms aim to ensure that sick patients, but still have several years of life with a quality of life still correct, cannot access the help of dying.
“Constant physical suffering”
It will also be necessary to present a “Constant physical or psychological suffering linked to this condition”. It must be “refractory to treatments, or unbearable for the patient who has chosen not to receive or stop receiving treatment.”
Last criterion: “Being able to Express your will in a free and enlightened way“. A person in a coma, therefore, cannot have access to help die.
Specifically, these terms aim to ensure that patients who are seriously ill but still have several years of life with a quality of life still cannot access the assisted suicide.
“Self -infection” of a lethal substance
If a patient meets all these criteria, you can request access to help die. Then he will be evaluated by a university “at least two doctors and a caregiver” who can make his decision after a meeting or a videoconference.
If the decision is validated, the patient will have an incompressible period of two days to confirm his request. The day D, it is the patient who will self -administer a lethal substance, more frequently in the form of drink. This gesture should take place in a health establishment and not in the patient’s house.
If the person who wants to die cannot do it, a caregiver can do it. However, no health professional will be “required to carry out procedures” linked to help die, either to make decisions or injection under a clause of consciousness.
Offense
A control and evaluation committee will be established. You will keep the registration of caregivers who practice help to die and you will have to inform justice the violations of ethics.
The deputies created a crime of obstacle to help, punishing “preventing or trying to prevent a patient from” practicing or learning “in help. When approved the crime model of the obstacle to abortion, this crime will be punished with 2 years in prison and 30,000 euros fine.
Less publicized, the bill on the development of palliative care will also be voted by deputies. With an objective: “guarantee the equal access of all to support and palliative care.”
Palliative care, now a right
Currently, 48% of patients who should be able to access it are not successful, due to lack of enough devices in their department. About twenty departments do not have a palliative care unit in a hospital in their territory.
Therefore, this text creates “a required right” to palliative care, indicating that “regional health agencies are guaranteeing the effectiveness of this right.” If patients do not have access to palliative care whenever they wish, they may appeal to the Administrative Court.
This text also creates a new establishment category: support houses and palliative care. These structures will be reserved for patients who “no longer fall under the technicality of a hospital service but cannot go home,” said Minister of Health, Catherine Vautrin.
The bill on help and palliative care will now be transmitted to the Senate. The debates promise to be heated in advance in an assembly with relatively conservative social positions. Emmanuel Macron announced in mid -May to be ready to resort to a referendum at the end of life in case of “stagnation” in Parliament.
Source: BFM TV
