Wednesday opens in Pau the trial of Nicolas Bonnemaison, the former emergency physician of the Bayonne hospital, accused of having poisoned seven patients at the end of their life.
While the debate on the end of life remains very passionate in France, Nicolas Bonnemaison, former emergency doctor will appear from June 11 to 27 before the Assize Court of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques in Pau for “poisoning”. Struck off by the Council of the Order of Physicians last April, he is accused of having shortened the lives of five men and two women between March 2010 and July 2011, in a unit of the emergency department of the Hospital of Bayonne. Denounced by nurses and a nursing assistant in August 2011, Nicolas Bonnemaison has always assumed his actions and assured to have acted alone, believing that he had to “put an end to extreme suffering”, and refuting the idea that he could be “An activist for euthanasia”. At the end of this trial to which he will appear free, the ex Dr Bonnemaison incurs life imprisonment.
“Nicolas Bonnemaison is ready to defend himself before a popular jury”, declared one of his lawyers, Me Benoît Ducos-Ader, before adding: “We will go and explain ourselves before the Assize Court. All persons who can testify on these questions of euthanasia will be summoned. We will closely examine the issues that go far beyond the issues related to this case. The UMP deputy Jean Leonetti, at the origin of the 2005 law relating to the rights of patients and the end of life, and the former Minister of Health Bernard Kouchner, in favor of a legalization of assisted suicide, are therefore expected among the 70 or so witnesses called to this trial.
Bonnemaison, Lambert, two cases that revive the debate
The case of Nicolas Bonnemaison divides the French and the medical profession. More than 250 practitioners denounced in an open letter to François Hollande the radiation of the emergency physician and a petition in favor of the former emergency physician collected 60,000 signatures. But beyond his personal case, it is the debate on euthanasia and medical assistance in dying that should resurface.
Especially since next June 20, the Council of State must render its decision concerning the interruption of treatment for Vincent Lambert, a quadriplegic patient in a vegetative state for several years whose family is torn apart around the end of life. An independent expert has confirmed the incurability of his condition. The decision of the Council of State will therefore be read as a restrictive interpretation or not of the Leonetti law while the government has announced its desire to go further than the current law without specifying a timetable.
In Paris, the Lambert case before the Council of State
In the meantime of this trial, the debate will also feed on the next decision of the Council of State which must rule on the interruption or not of care for Vincent Lambert, a quadriplegic in a vegetative state whose family is torn apart about whether or not it is kept alive. The hearing will take place on June 20. And to make its decision, the Council of State will rely on the conclusions of an expertise that it had ordered in February and which confirms the incurability of Vincent Lambert.
Here again, beyond the individual case, the verdict of the high administrative court is eagerly awaited, because it should lead to a more or less broad interpretation of the Leonetti law. It is only then – perhaps not before the start of the school year – that the CCNE should submit its summary report on the States General of the end of life. In the meantime, the government, which has already received several opinions, is continuing its consultations. A text could intervene by the end of the year to honor François Hollande’s promise who in January again wished for a law which would allow, “within a strict framework”, to an adult suffering from an incurable disease to request “medical assistance to end his life in dignity”.
– See more at: http://www.legeneraliste.fr/actualites/article/2014/06/09/bonnemaison-lambert-a-partir-de-mercredi-la-justice-rouvre-le-debat-sur-la -end-of-life_244601 # sthash.bSfnqbB9.dpuf
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