Affiliations: [a] Department of Neurosciences, Ospedale “Santa Maria della Misericordia”, Udine, Italy | [b] Neurorehabilitation Unit, DPSMC, University of Udine, Udine, Italy | [x] Department of Neurosciences, Ospedale “Santa Maria della Misericordia”, Udine, Italy | [y] Concussion Care Center of Virginia, Inc., Ltd., Tree of Life Services, Inc., Pinnacle Rehabilitation, Inc., Glen Allen, VA, USA
Correspondence:
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Address for correspondence: G.L. Gigli, Department of Neurosciences, Ospedale Santa Maria della Misericordia, 33100 Udine, Italy. Tel.: +39 0432 552720; Fax: +39 0432 552719; E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract: The withdrawal of assisted nutrition and hydration (ANH) is increasingly supported by scientific societies, by hospitals and by some families, once the condition of vegetative state could be considered permanent. In the first part of this article, the authors present the factors used to support the decision to withdraw ANH: a) the prognostic evaluation about outcome transformed into a clinical diagnosis of permanency; b) basic health care transformed into a medical treatment, subject to refusal by the patient; c) the human life (an undisposable good) transformed into a disposable one, open to decisions made by surrogates; d) the evaluations about quality of life transformed into judgments about the indignity of human life to be lived. In the second part, the authors outline the changes that this attitude can provoke in the integrity and the juridical status of the medical and nursing professions, and its potential impact on the society at large.
Keywords: vegetative state, nutrition and hydration, bioethics, medical profession, euthanasia
