The end of care for Vincent Lambert, patient in vegetative state for ten years, is scheduled for the week of May 20th but his parents still want to file appeals.
The end of Vincent Lambert patient care in a vegetative state for ten years, despite the fact that he has become the symbol of the debate on the end of life, is scheduled for this week. But his parents still hope to suspend the decision with “new appeals”.
Validated by the Council of State at the end of April , the interruption of care provides, according to a medical source, stopping machines to hydrate and feed and a sedation “controlled, deep and continuous” of this man today of 42 years, as well as taking analgesics “as a precaution”.
The doctor warned the family that the protocol would intervene “the week of May 20” , which begins this Monday. According to a source close to the record, the interruption of care may not be implemented before Tuesday.
No information is available on the safety device concerning the implementation of this protocol at the University Hospital of Reims, where this former nurse in a vegetative and tetraplegic condition has been hospitalized under high surveillance since a road accident in 2008.
Family Tearing on the Public Stage
Originally an intimate tragedy, this case has become the symbol of the end-of-life debate and has been tearing apart its family for six years: on the one hand, fervent Catholic parents, a brother and a sister oppose the arrest care; on the other, his wife Rachel, his nephew François and five siblings of the patient want to put an end to this “therapeutic relentlessness”.
Vincent Lambert did not leave any advance directives. But his wife and nephew say that he had taken a stand against any relentless treatment.
Parents Viviane (73) and Pierre (90), who consider their son as severely handicapped and claim his transfer to a specialized institution, have vainly multiplied the remedies since the highest court has validated the procedure of cessation of care, requested by the CHU in April 2018. The fourth since 2013 …
Read also: Vincent Lambert: 150 people gathered in Reims against stopping treatment
Only the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) of the UN went in the direction of parents, asking France to maintain care, pending a review of the file on the merits, he would lead.
But France repeats that these provisional measures “are not binding” and puts forward the “right of the patient not to suffer unreasonable obstinacy”.
Saturday, Jean Paillot and Jérôme Triomphe therefore implored Emmanuel Macron to maintain treatment, calling the patient’s scheduled death a “state crime committed at the cost of a coup against the rule of law.”
“The President of the Republic does not want to go against court decisions,” said Nathalie Loiseau, head of the list of the majority in the European elections.
“Framework of the law”
In the absence of a reaction, these same lawyers promised “three new appeals on Monday” – refusing to say more.
They highlight in particular the last report of experts mandated by the justice, made end 2018. These last advanced that the medical condition of Vincent Lambert “does not call any measure of urgency” and that “there exists in France structures can accommodate it until its disappearance if the maintenance at the University Hospital of Reims proved impossible for reasons other than the simple medical technique.
These same experts, however, asserted that his “irreversible chronic vegetative state” leaves him no longer “of possible access to consciousness.”
My Paillot and Triomphe are also demanding the removal and prosecution of Dr. Vincent Sanchez, who heads the palliative care service and the “brain-damaged” unit at Sevastopol Hospital. He announced the cessation of treatment for the week of May 20th. Will they seize for this purpose the Council of the College of Physicians?
“If he strives to violate interim measures that are mandatory as recalled by the Defender of Rights and have been recalled twice by the United Nations, he alone will have to take responsibility for this violation,” he said. in any case thundered with AFP Jerome Triumph.
Sunday, some 200 people demonstrated in front of Sevastopol hospital denouncing like Viviane Lambert “disguised euthanasia”.
“Why this rush to drive him to death? “Was also surprised the Conference of Bishops. François-Xavier Bellamy, head of the LR list in the European elections, also asked that we “give ourselves time”.
Father of the law governing 2016 end of life, Jean Leonetti, also first vice-president LR, believes instead that the termination of care of Vincent Lambert fits well “within the framework of the law”, saying that ” in hospitals, almost 60% of patients die when they die, after a limitation or cessation of treatment. “
