Assisted dying is “a euthanasia bill”, denounces Dr Claire Fourcade

Assisted dying, proposed by Emmanuel Macron on Sunday March 10 in an interview with La Croix and Libération, is “a euthanasia bill”denounces on franceinfo Doctor Claire Fourcade, doctor and president of the French Society for Support and Palliative Care (SFAP). “I am a palliative care doctor, I support patients at the end of life, I provide assistance in dying on a daily basis, but what the president is proposing is a bill for causing death, a bill for law on euthanasia and assisted suicide by medical decision”she laments.

The caregiver firmly opposes the text envisaged by the executive. “For us caregivers, this bill causes immense concern”, insists Claire Fourcade. The conditions set out in the text, in particular the need to be an adult suffering from an incurable illness with a life-threatening prognosis to benefit from assistance in dying, struggle to convince the doctor.

“That doesn’t reassure me because in all the countries that have legislated on euthanasia, these conditions have not held up over time, so for me, they are provisional”

Claire Fourcade, president of the French Society for Support and Palliative Care

franceinfo

The president of the SFAP believes that it is rather urgent to invest in palliative care. “Today, in France, 500 people die without having had access to palliative care, even though they needed to be relieved. It seems to us that the urgency is to support all these people” , explains Claire Fourcade. 21 departments in France do not have palliative care services.