Advance directives allow you to express (in advance) your will to continue, limit, stop or even refuse medical treatment for the day when you can no longer do it yourself – for example: because of accident or serious illness.
The law of February 2, 2016 requires doctors to apply the patient’s advance directives: these even take precedence over the opinions of relatives and the person of trust of the person concerned.
Yes, but here it is: this Thursday, November 10, 2022, the Constitutional Council considered that a doctor is not required to respect the advance directives of a patient at the end of life if they seem to him “inappropriate” or “non-compliant to the medical condition”.
Advance directives deemed “inappropriate”
This precision was already present in the law of February 2, 2016: this text also provides that doctors can ignore the advance directives of a patient at the end of life “in the event of a vital emergency, the time to assess the situation”. For the Constitutional Council, this law is consistent with the “safeguard of the dignity of the person” as well as his “personal freedom”.
An example to understand. The Constitutional Council was seized by the family of a patient in his forties: the victim of an accident, he has been in a coma since May 2022. He is hospitalized at the Center Hospitalier de Valenciennes (59).
His situation is considered hopeless by the doctors who wish to stop the care (nutrition and artificial respiration). Problem: this decision would go against the patient’s advance directives. The Constitutional Council therefore here agreed with the medical profession. To be continued…
Source : France Blue
