In the evocative setting of the Sala del Trionfo di Diana in Palazzo Sant’Elia, the training event “End of life: an open question” opens the debate on the increasingly current topics of right to health and human dignity. First appointment of the AISLA Roadmap, the event is part of the month dedicated to free training in ECM promoted by AISLA, aimed at health professionals and workers.
ALS is a disease that confronts the person with existential choices, a true paradigm of the complexity of care. Where Life and its quality are the objective to be pursued, from a “neuropalliative care” perspective, AISLA is firmly committed to cooperation between healthcare professionals so that the medical area can adequately fulfill its role. In this logic, the figure of the palliative doctor is the figure of the specialist with the appropriate skills to support families in coping with complex situations, such as destructive behavioral manifestations, frontotemporal dementia, withdrawal of informed consent and difficult symptomatic problems. The conference, under the High Patronage of the President of the Republic, is sponsored by: Regione Siciliana; Palermo Municipality; University of Palermo and Sant’Elia Foundation.
Therefore, the debate focused on the exchange and reflection work initiated by the Association on Shared Care Planning, as defined in article 5 of Law No. 219 of 2017. Since 2014, AISLA has been committed to prepare a consensus document on therapeutic options. of the person affected by ALS, a job that has been developed over time and thanks to the work of multidisciplinary teams. “The unpredictability of ALS is different from person to person and never unique.” – declares Dr. Daniela Cattaneo, palliative care physician at AISLA, who continues “We need to invest in an empathetic link with palliative care experts. The synergy with a specialized team can trace personalized paths for the well-being of the person, offering support that reduces the possibility of urgent or emergency hospitalizations”
“The complex of laws regarding ethics changes rapidly, but our common feeling changes much more slowly and less linearly – declares Prof. Lucia Craxi Vice President of the Bioethics Consultation and Researcher of the BIND Department of the University of Palermo who continued – Focused care, yes, but focused on the person. Our narrative of medicine sees the doctor as a warrior hero, I would like a narrative in which the hero is the patient, who can also decide not necessarily to be a warrior. Therefore , the duty of care in the biomedical sense must be oriented towards respect for the self-determination of the person. Life is an inviolable good”. A cultural and systemic approach that overturns the traditional model of action. It is Time, understood as emotional criteria for the choice of the person and their family, which is responsible in this perspective of care.
In fact, it is about creating the premises where today’s commitment must take into account the decisions and perspectives of the future. In a dialogue between theology, morality and human suffering, Pietro Cognato, bioethicist theologian from the Pontifical Theological Faculty of Sicily, addressed the audience with open questions and taking as his starting point the letter Samaritanus bonus, published on July 14, 2020 by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. A text that can be defined as a guide for the “ethics of care at the end of life” that offers meaning and hope to the fragile human existence.
