Euthanasia: A Challenge to Medical Ethics

Nunes, Rui; Rêgo, Guilhermina

doi:10.4172/2155-9627.1000282

Cited by 8 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…In PAS or physician-assisted death, a physician provides medication or a prescription to a patient at patient’s explicit request, with the understanding that the patient intends to use the medications to end his or her life. 28 – 30…”

Section: Decision-making During End-of-life Carementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In countries where euthanasia and PAS are legal, a physician has the right to refuse a patient’s request. 28 …”

Section: Decision-making During End-of-life Carementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In countries where euthanasia and PAS are legal, a physician has the right to refuse a patient's request. 28 At the present time, active euthanasia is legal in five countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Canada, and Colombia), although the laws of these countries differ considerably regarding practices. Passive euthanasia is legal in 12 countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Norway, Sweden, Spain, Canada, Colombia; and Mexico, Argentina, and Chile).…”

Section: Decision-making During End-of-life Carementioning

confidence: 99%

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Ethical considerations at the end-of-life care

2021

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The goal of end-of-life care for dying patients is to prevent or relieve suffering as much as possible while respecting the patients’ desires. However, physicians face many ethical challenges in end-of-life care. Since the decisions to be made may concern patients’ family members and society as well as the patients, it is important to protect the rights, dignity, and vigor of all parties involved in the clinical ethical decision-making process. Understanding the principles underlying biomedical ethics is important for physicians to solve the problems they face in end-of-life care. The main situations that create ethical difficulties for healthcare professionals are the decisions regarding resuscitation, mechanical ventilation, artificial nutrition and hydration, terminal sedation, withholding and withdrawing treatments, euthanasia, and physician-assisted suicide. Five ethical principles guide healthcare professionals in the management of these situations.

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Section: Decision-making During End-of-life Carementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In countries where euthanasia and PAS are legal, a physician has the right to refuse a patient’s request. 28 …”

Section: Decision-making During End-of-life Carementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Decision-making During End-of-life Carementioning

confidence: 99%

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Ethical considerations at the end-of-life care

2021

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“…21,22 In addition, some developed countries have a longstanding practice of publicly discussing and empowering society to directly deliberate on euthanasia issues. 23 As noted above, the World Health Assembly indicated that palliative care service has limited availability across the world, especially in low and middle income countries. 1,3,4,5 Palliative care can be further developed in these countries by managing its barriers and thereby raising public awareness, particularly by changing culture-bound attitudes and increasing available resources.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Public Awareness and Attitude toward Palliative Care in Thailand

Kunakornvong¹

2020

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Objective: This study aims to examine the Thai public's awareness and attitude toward the end of life and palliative care. Methods: We surveyed between February and April 2018. The sampling was framed by the Thailand National Statistical Office and used a stratified four-stage sampling. A total of 2,394 adults aged 20 to 80 years who had lived in one of nine provinces across all of Thailand for at least 3 months were interviewed with a questionnaire, which consisted of four parts. Results: Thai culture and tradition were the main barriers to discuss the end of life preparation. Only 43% of the respondents, most of whom were elderly with chronic diseases, had concerned about the end of life. Most elderly respondents preferred to receive end-of-life care at home. Only 24% of respondents knew of palliative care. Most respondents believed that palliative care was provided in public hospitals. Most respondents (92%) were familiar with section 12 of the National Health Act., B.E. 2550, which states that a person has the right to refuse medical treatment; however, majority (79%) had never heard of a living will and only 14% had experience of advance care planning. Conclusion: Public awareness on the end of life preparation of Thai people was challenged and limited. The main barriers to concerns about it are attitude and knowledge. Promoting and educating palliative care is necessary as well as improve the availability of palliative care, both institutional and home-based care.

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“…There will always be an inner conscientious objection to assisting those who choose to end their life, on account of the professional obligation of beneficence, but this has to be balanced equally by respecting patient autonomy. Significant impact on how the community perceives the physician's role can be achieved by engaging in ethical behavior and “doing the right thing” for patients ( 39 ). General physicians and other healthcare professionals working with patients of severe dementia face another conundrum with the prospect of permanent disability brought on by the disease toward the end of life.…”

Section: The Moral Dilemma Of Professionalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Right to Life or Right to Die in Advanced Dementia: Physician-Assisted Dying

2021

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A mind that could be so alive one moment with thought and feeling building toward the next step and then someone erases the blackboard. It's all gone and I can't even reconstruct what the topic was. It's just gone. And I sit with the dark, the blank." As the eminent American psychologist, Sandra Bem mused so eloquently in her writings, immediately after receiving a diagnosis of Alzheimer's (1). This anecdote very poignantly summarizes the harrowing effect dementia has on the individual person. There have been massive improvements in the health sector over the previous decades, and as a consequence people have been able to live longer and healthier lives. However, concurrently, there has also been an increase in the cases of non-communicable diseases, which includes dementia. In 2015 itself, dementia affected 47 million people worldwide; corresponding to roughly 5% of the world's elderly population (2, 3). Extensive research has been done for early and moderate stage dementia, but severe dementia is relatively neglected with very few evidence-based treatment options available. The later stages are very important because they harbor unique characteristics and events that affect not only the lives of the patients, but also their caregivers. In advanced stages, patients suffer from gradual deterioration in cognitive ability and functional impairments, which imposes a heavy burden on the public health system and families. Both direct and indirect costs of institutionalization are staggeringly large (4). These factors require a need for revision of existing health advisory and the below-mentioned concerns should be appropriately addressed before devising further health policy.

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Euthanasia: A Challenge to Medical Ethics

Cited by 8 publications

References 36 publications

Ethical considerations at the end-of-life care

Ethical considerations at the end-of-life care

Public Awareness and Attitude toward Palliative Care in Thailand

Right to Life or Right to Die in Advanced Dementia: Physician-Assisted Dying

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