In front of the Military School, there are a dozen caregivers in a belligerent mood. This Monday, December 18, in a chic brasserie in the capital, they explain, in front of a still life representing a skinned hare, why they posed a rabbit to Agnès Firmin Le Bodo that very morning. The Minister Delegate in charge of health professions invited them to the presentation of the report foreshadowing the “ten-year strategy” in favor of palliative care and end-of-life support that she intends to put in place.
Their boycott of the meeting aims to make the voice heard ” anger ” of the seventeen learned societies and medical organizations that they represent. They are signatories of a joint declaration against the preliminary draft law on the end of life drawn up by Mme Firmin Le Bodo. The fire had been smoldering for several weeks between the minister and the collective of health professionals. But the disclosure of the first version of the bill (The world dated November 15 and Le Figaro of December 14) triggered hostilities.
The provisional copy of the law states that any person suffering from an incurable illness with intractable pain may request the prescription of a lethal product, which they would self-administer. If she is physically unable to absorb this substance alone, she will have the possibility of asking a doctor, a nurse or a relative to administer it to her.
” It’s a trap “
The minister does “the choice of an induced and organized death within the health system”, denounces the collective of seventeen organizations. “We are caregivers, not 007s who are given a license to kill”, exclaims Thierry Amouroux, spokesperson for the National Union of Nursing Professionals (CFE-CGC). Although invited, for the most part, for several months by Mme Firmin Le Bodo at meetings on the development of the project, these caregivers protest against a text designed ” in isolation “, ” in catimini “and an “pathetic management” folder.
However, their intention is not to definitively break off discussions with the government. Linchpin of the collective, Claire Fourcade, president of the French Society for Support and Palliative Care, conditions “a resumption of dialogue” to respect a claim: the separation of “provisions on caused death” and those on “the development of palliative care” in two separate pieces of legislation, whereas they are today associated in the preliminary draft law drafted by Mr.me Firmin Le Bodo. The lethal gesture cannot be assimilated to a medical procedure and even less to treatment, argues the collective.
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