Repercussion and impact on regulations of documents issued by the observatory of bioethics and law on advanced directives and euthanasia
| Páginas | 27-35 |
Page 27
The need to reprint the Observatory of Bioethics and Law’s Documents on advanced directives (June 2001) and euthanasia (December 2003) provides us with a perfect opportunity to analyse the repercussions these Documents have had in the field of bioethics, science and medicine and society and also to carry out a detailed study of how they influence current regulations.
With this aim in mind, we again present the aforementioned Documents -which are out of print- respecting the original version and updating them so as to include in this new edition, the repercussion they have had on the current regulations which were passed following the publication of our Documents and which include our proposals.
Page 28
Page 29
On 11 January 2001, the Official Journal of the Generalitat of Catalonia published Law 21/2000, 29 December, on the rights to data concerning one’s health, patient’s autonomy and clinical data, which in article 8 refers to citizens’ rights to freely draft a document of advanced directives which -together with the requirement of informed consent and the right to data - has completely changed the traditional relations in health care, and relationships between healthcare professionals, patients and users. Two years later, Law 41/2002, 14 November, basic regulation on patient’s autonomy and rights and obligations in matters of data and clinical documentation (BOE 274, 15/11/2002), copied on a state-wide level almost exactly what the Catalan Parliament had established.
In June 2001, some months after this law was passed by the Catalan Parliament, the Opinion Group at the Observatory of Bioethics and Law, pioneers in our field, drafted and published a Document in which an analysis of this article in the Law was made providing citizens with a model of an Advanced Directives Document (hereinafter, ADD) together with an Instruction Sheet with recommendations for those who wish to exercise this right.
Given the Law failed to provide citizens with any model as to how they were to specify their advanced directives, the Opinion Group believed the time was right to draft one for citizens who wished to use all or part of it, or which perhaps could be regarded as a starting point for drafting a personal document in accordance with each person’s wishes and preferences.
This ADD model included several features which were later mostly included in other ADD models prepared by other public and private entities and institutions, and by State Autonomous Communities. In the Table attached to this Presentation, references are included on these models so as to highlight the repercussion and impact the Document by the Observatory of Bioethics and Law has had on regulations.
Page 30
The basic points of the Document issued by the Observatory of Bioethics and Law included in other ADDs are:
-
Representatives appointed (and even an absolute substitute representative in case something impedes the main representative from exercising this power or waiving it) in the ADD will provide a guarantee of complying with the wishes expressed by persons drafting ADDs, and these would be valid and necessary interlocutors for the physician or the healthcare team caring for the patient at that moment.
This idea was included in all ADD models, as shown in the attached Table.
- ...
Para continuar leyendo
Solicita tu prueba