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Setback for right-to-die man
20/12/2006 20:13 - (SA)
Rome - An Italian muscular dystrophy patient at the centre of a national debate on euthanasia suffered a setback on Wednesday in his bid to be allowed to die, when experts said he was not receiving excessive care.
"Treatment for Piergiorgio Welby, in particular the artificial respirator that is keeping him alive, does not constitute excessive care," the higher health council (CSS) said, according to the ANSA news agency.
The advice of the 51-member CSS is not legally binding, but its expertise was requested by health minister Livia Turco last week.
Welby, 60, is terminally ill and has been on life support since 1997.
He wrote an open letter to Italian President Giorgio Napolitano in September asking to be allowed to die, sparking intense debate on euthanasia in predominantly Catholic Italy.
Rome's state prosecutors on Tuesday challenged a civil court's refusal to recognise Welby's right to go off life support, saying the decision contained "flagrant contradictions", notably by holding that the patient can ask for his respirator to be shut off, but that this right cannot be accorded by the courts.
Turco said on Saturday that the court's decision confirmed "the need to urgently draw up regulations capable of clarifying the judicial framework of what we call sustaining life by artificial means".
Muscular dystrophy is a degenerative genetic disease that progressively wastes muscle tissue.
- AFP
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