Recently, our country adopted the “Integrated Palliative Care System” (Law 5007/2022). I do not at all belittle the significance of the law, but its implementation is certainly greater. In Greece, palliative care for those suffering from serious, life-threatening or chronic diseases is practically non-existent. The gap is filled to the best of their small strength, but nevertheless in an exceptional way by the Galilee of the Metropolis of Mesogeia and Lavreotica. Faced with the painful reality of an incurable disease, when all treatments have been tried and death is imminent, palliative care is not a choice we can make or not make, but a shared responsibility of the state, society, family, relatives and friends. each of us. Palliative care is an extremely delicate and complex work that requires special training and special human talents. People in palliative care where it actually happens, doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers, volunteers, often cite shocking human examples. They are next to the patient, in the most difficult moment of his life, and attentively and lovingly listen to his cry, his cry, his protest, his complaint, his indignation. They accompany the patient step by step, without ideologies and worldviews, without a program, with their hands, eyes, body. He is recognized, in the pipes and in the final collapse, as a person worthy of care and love, they say “we” to the dying!

Today we have many remedies to relieve pain, but there are times when nothing works, and 5%, no matter what we do, will still suffer physically and mentally, and the cry “I can’t take it anymore” will not be able to receive a comforting answer. . So what do those of us who deeply believe in palliative care do in such cases? One solution is deep and continuous repression, legalized in different countries. However, an integral part of palliative care is accompaniment, so we cannot talk about palliative care for people under sedation. I agree, but the escort will not stop, it will continue moving towards the familiar. Another patient, in this situation where nothing relieves the pain, may opt for assisted suicide or euthanasia, where these are permitted. What about palliative care then? Does it stop? No, another answer. This continues to the end. Even in the event of a decision to euthanasia, the medical professional will meet and talk with the patient himself and his family to help them understand what is at stake, to help them properly manage the remaining time before the appointed date, so that the last wishes of the patient are formulated and fulfilled, he will stand next to those who are next to the patient at the last moment. In public debate, palliative care is too often presented as the insurmountable opposition to euthanasia. For workers (doctors, nurses, volunteers) of palliative care, for those who have at least deeply understood its spirit, such an abyss does not exist. This is the greatness of palliative care: the people who serve it respect every choice of the patient, whatever it may be, and accompany him to the end.

Practitioners of palliative care and those who believe in it, of course, do not agree with euthanasia, that is, with a law that allows or obliges a doctor under certain conditions and conditions to administer a lethal dose. The hand that heals cannot kill with the same hand.

Respect for the pain of a person who suffers hopelessly makes us accept euthanasia.

Yes, but what will happen to hopelessly suffering people, what will happen, for example, to a paralyzed person who, after a car accident, remains pressed to the bed for five to ten years with complete clarity of mind, who can no longer endure and asks to die? What will happen to this person and his request to leave? Many even in this state persist in life. But there are those who can’t stand it. For these cases, there is the option of medically assisted suicide. Respect for the pain of the person who suffers hopelessly and asks to die himself leads us to accept euthanasia, whereby we avoid the drama of violent or failed suicide and help our fellow man have a peaceful end. The legislation on suicide with medical assistance should be summarized and its difference from euthanasia should be defined as clearly as possible: the lethal dose here is not administered by the doctor, it is taken by the patient himself or his relatives. But what happens when someone is in the same situation and no one is around? Then the hard fate will fall on the nurse or doctor, who are called to perform euthanasia as a painful act of love.

The great physician, devout Catholic who has served her whole life in palliative care, Corinne Van Oost (b. 1955) in her excellent book The Catholic Physician, for Practical Euthanasia (Presses de la Renaissance, 2014) cites cases of euthanasia she undertook from deep compassion, the first case in the Albertina when euthanasia was still banned in Belgium. He suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and eventually moved only his eyelids. He loved her very much and therefore granted her request to die, then mourned her and always carried her photograph in his wallet.

Those interested in questions of bioethics, which are essentially matters of life and death, should not limit themselves to reading legal treatises or philosophical essays. They should read more testimonials from patients and their relatives. Only through them will they acquire the ethic of hesitation, so necessary when we are faced with the most extreme experiences of life.