The extreme gesture after months of unheard requests despite the fact that the practice is legal in the country
MADRID. A gesture of extreme desperation after months of unheard requests. Emilia MM, an 83-year-old woman living in Zaragoza, has been calling for access to euthanasia since July, which has been legal in Spain this year. But the doctors’ okay never came. Last Saturday, the old woman, who for about three years had been practically stuck in bed due to chronic and painful health problems, took her own life by throwing herself into the void from a window of her home. This is the case reported by the association Right to die with dignity (Dmd), which has been fighting for this cause in the Iberian country for years. A situation that has left a “devastated” family. It is an example of how there is still a way to go to ensure that the law on euthanasia – which came into force on 25 June last – is applied in all respects. “There have been mistakes,” acknowledged the head of Health of Aragon (the Zaragoza region), Sira Repollés.
Emilia’s mind had remained “clear”, while her physical condition had undergone “serious deterioration” without “any possibility of improvement”, in addition to “congenital problems in a hip”, says the DMD association. A situation that had become unbearable in recent years, despite the help guaranteed by her family, in particular from a daughter who lived with her: locked in an apartment “without a lift”, the old woman spent her days “between bed and sofa », explains Carmen Malo, a spokeswoman for the DMD. It was at a time when her daughter was briefly absent when Emilia (whose full personal details have not been released) gathered enough strength to drag herself to the window and throw herself underneath, adds Malo.
After having collected testimonies from the woman’s family members, the DMD association declares itself “absolutely convinced” of the fact that her health conditions were among those required by law to guarantee the right to euthanasia – recognizable to people suffering from a “serious illness and incurable “or from a” serious, chronic and disabling “pathology, causing” unbearable suffering “- and he claims that his represents a case of” boycott “by doctors.
Both her general practitioner and other heads of the local health center assigned to her have in fact refused to accept her written request to begin the practices of euthanasia, according to the DMD. An attitude contrary to the provisions of the law, according to Carmen Malo: “A doctor can declare himself a conscientious objector, but he cannot originally refuse a request to initiate the procedure,” he says.
A circumstance that led the regional authorities, competent in this case, to intervene. “The responsibilities of the people who probably were not able to carry out the procedures in the established time and manner have been clarified,” said the councilor for health of Aragon Sira Repollés to the Iberian media. According to what he added, only 6% of health professionals in his region declared themselves conscientious objector.
With a law approved in Parliament in March 2021 and coming into force three months later, after 20 years of legislative attempts on the matter, Spain has become the seventh country in the world to make euthanasia legal. The process for giving the go-ahead for aid to die is expected to take about five weeks. The patient must express his consent several times and his request must be studied by at least two doctors and a guarantee commission. Currently, the data available on the requests already received by the public administration are still scarce and an exact number of how many have been completed is not known. Some of the earliest cases have been reported in the past few weeks by local media. According to what was denounced by the DMD association, several people encountered bureaucratic problems when making a request for help in dying. The same association calculates that, if the new national law is applied correctly, euthanasia cases in Spain will represent between 1% and 4% of annual deaths.
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