The cessation of care of this quadriplegic patient in a vegetative state for over 10 years should be started again this Tuesday 2nd July 2019, at the University Hospital of Reims.
Vincent Lambert, a quadriplegic patient who has been in a vegetative state for more than 10 years, will have an end of his treatment on the 2nd July 2019, the family doctor told the University Hospital of Reims, according to concordant sources.
“The course of the procedure of stopping treatments”, started May 20 but stopped the next day at the request of the Court of Appeal of Paris, “will be continued from this day,” said Dr Vincent Sanchez to each member of Mr Lambert’s family.
Vincent Lambert: le médecin annonce un nouvel arrêt des traitements à compter d’aujourd’hui, selon des sources concordantes #AFP
— Agence France-Presse (@afpfr) 2 July 2019
In this message sent at mid-day and which AFP is aware of, the doctor calls “the responsibility of everyone” so that “the accompaniment of Mr Vincent Lambert is the most peaceful, intimate and personal possible” .
The medical protocol includes a “stop treatment” and a “deep and continuous sedation”.
Friday, the Court of Cassation had paved the way for a new stop diet and hydration now alive Vincent Lambert, “endpoint” of this case because “there are no more possible remedies”, according to the lawyer of his wife Rachel, who is fighting for him to die.
The high court has overturned the decision of the Paris Court of Appeal, which, on May 20, at the time of another theatrical turn in this case, had ordered the resumption of the treatments, interrupted the same morning, of this former nurse of 42 years old, victim of a road accident in 2008.
The Court of Cassation ruled that the judicial judge was not competent and pronounced this cassation “without reference” before another jurisdiction.
“Murder with premeditation”
Vincent Lambert’s mother, Viviane, totally opposed to stopping treatment, spoke at the UN in Geneva on Monday to launch “a cry for help”. “Without your intervention, my son Vincent Lambert will be euthanized by a doctor because of his cerebral disability (…) We want to assassinate him! She had said.
His lawyers announced on Friday that they would file a complaint for “premeditated murder” against the doctor who would order a cessation of treatment.
Read also: The cessation of Vincent Lambert’s care began, a “madness” for his parents
This case is also the story of a family torn apart by years of a tragic court battle. Rachel Lambert is supported by six brothers and sisters and a nephew of Vincent, François Lambert, who intend to put an end to this “therapeutic relentlessness” and claim that the former nurse had taken a stand in this direction. Vincent Lambert however did not leave an advance directive.
The parents, Viviane and Pierre Lambert, fervent Catholics and considered close to fundamentalist circles, feel that their son is disabled and not “not at the end of life, nor a vegetable” and ask that he be transferred to a specialized institution.
“I hope this will be the epilogue,” said Marie-Geneviève Lambert, Vincent’s sister and AFP to the end of treatments. “I am reassured that the doctor did not crack and did not feel threatened by the promise of trial,” she said, fearing however that the process is not “in the greatest serenity.”
Before May, the University Hospital of Reims had already launched and stopped two procedures for stopping treatments, one brought by Dr. Eric Kariger in 2013, the other by his successor, Dr. Daniéla Simon in 2015.
The current interruption of treatment, in accordance with a medical decision signed by Dr. Sanchez in April 2018, was validated by the State Council at the end of April and the parents’ appeal to the European Court of Human Rights has failed.
Father of the 2016 law governing the end of life, the former deputy LR Jean Leonetti judges that the termination of treatments Vincent Lambert fits well “within the framework of the law.”
Read also: Vincent Lambert: the court of appeal orders the resumption of the treatments
