A local health authority has "once
again rejected" a request for assisted suicide presented by
Martina Oppelli, a 49-year-old architect from Trieste with
progressive multiple sclerosis (PMS), the Luca Coscioni
Association said on Wednesday.
The association reported that, "despite the deterioration of
her condition and an order issued by the tribunal of Trieste
imposing a new medical evaluation", local health authority ASUGI
denied the patient's "access to voluntary death, ignoring
sentence 135 of the Constitutional Court" issued this year, and
"condemning Martina to endless suffering".
The association said ASUGI initially denied the woman access to
assisted suicide as, according to the first report it issued,
the therapies she was being subjected to and the constant
assistance of "third persons to undertake any type of activity
including nutrition and hydration and the use of bronchodilators
did not constitute treatments of vital support".
Given the patient's worsening condition, the court ordered ASUGI
to re-evaluate her case within the following 30 days as Oppelli
had in the meantime become completely dependent on a life-saving
machine.
But ASUGI "confirmed its denial, based on a report downplaying
the role of treatment on which Martina depends on a daily
basis", said the association.
Attorney Filomena Gallo, secretary of the Luca Coscioni
Association, said the organization she represents will take
action against the report which has "grave consequences for
Oppelli", she said.
Last month, the Constitutional Court ruled that judges will need
to evaluate each judicial case regarding medically assisted
suicide in the absence of legislation regulating the matter.
The court said a judge will need to independently evaluate "on
the basis of the principles already outlined in a sentence
issued in 2019 whether a person can be indicted in relation to
the practice of assisted suicide".
The reference is to the Constitutional Court's 2019 so-called
'Cappato ruling', named after the Luca Coscioni Association's
right-to-die campaigner Marco Cappato, making assisted suicide
permissible in Italy in some circumstances.
The requirements outlined in the 2019 sentence included the
presence of an irreversible pathology, unbearable physical or
psychological suffering and the patient's reliance on treatments
of vital support, among others.
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