BIOETYKA / ETYKA MEDYCZNA

BIOETYKA / ETYKA MEDYCZNA - Przeglądy aktów prawnych

Rekomendacja w sprawie ochrony praw i godności osób terminalnie chorych i umierających – Zgromadzenie Parlamentarne Rady Europy nr 1418 (1999)

9. The Assembly therefore recommends that the Committee of Ministers encourage the member states of the Council of Europe to respect and protect the dignity of terminally ill or dying persons in all respects:

a. by recognizing and protecting a terminally ill or dying person’s right to comprehensive palliative care, while taking the necessary measures:

i. to ensure that palliative care is recognized as a legal entitlement of the individual in all member states;

ii. to provide equitable access to appropriate palliative care for all terminally ill or dying persons;

iii. to ensure that relatives and friends are encouraged to accompany the terminally ill or dying and are professionally supported in their endeavors. If family and/or private networks prove to be either insufficient or overstretched, alternative or supplementary forms of professional medical care are to be provided;

iv. to provide for ambulant hospice teams and networks, to ensure that palliative care is available at home, wherever ambulant care for the terminally ill or dying may be feasible;

v. to ensure co-operation between all those involved in the care of a terminally ill or dying person;

vi. to ensure the development and implementation of quality standards for the care of the terminally ill or dying;

vii. to ensure that, unless the patient chooses otherwise, a terminally ill or dying person will receive adequate pain relief and palliative care, even if this treatment as a side-effect may contribute to the shortening of the individual’s life;

viii. to ensure that health professionals are trained and guided to provide medical, nursing and psychological care for any terminally ill or dying person in coordinated teamwork, according to the highest standards possible;

ix. to set up and further develop centers of research, teaching and training in the fields of palliative medicine and care as well as in interdisciplinary thanatology;

x. to ensure that specialized palliative care units as well as hospices are established at least in larger hospitals, from which palliative medicine and care can evolve as an integral part of any medical treatment;

xi. to ensure that palliative medicine and care are firmly established in public awareness as an important goal of medicine;

b. by protecting the terminally ill or dying person’s right to self-determination, while taking the necessary measures (…)

c. by upholding the prohibition against intentionally taking the life of terminally ill or dying persons (…)