A presidential committee has recommended improving the so-called “crash death with dignity,” which determines the suspension of life-sustaining treatment (aka death with dignity) right before the end of life.
On the 22nd, the National Bioethics Review Committee (hereafter referred to as the National Life Ethics Committee) under the president confirmed a recommendation to improve the life-sustaining treatment decision system and notified the government. The National Health Commission recommended, “Revision of the current Life-Sustaining Treatment Determination Act, which limits the time when a life-sustaining treatment plan can be drawn up to ‘terminal patients, etc.’”. A terminally ill patient is one who has no possibility of recovery even with aggressive treatment and is gradually deteriorating. A doctor’s diagnosis is required.
Baek Soo-jin, head of the Bioethics Center at the National Institute for Bioethics Policy, said, “I feel burdened because doctors will look like they are giving up treatment when they make a terminal diagnosis. As a result, the time to write a life-sustaining treatment plan is missed and continues to be delayed. It is written at the last minute or the family decides.” If the restriction on terminally ill patients is removed, a life-sustaining plan can be written at the time of a cancer diagnosis much earlier or when an elderly long-term patient is conscious after listening to the doctor’s explanation. After filling out this document in advance, you can choose the place of death, leave the words “I love you” to your family, and reconcile with family, relatives and friends.
The life-sustaining treatment decision system came into effect in February 2018, and as of the end of last year, 260,000 people died after choosing to die with dignity. The number of people who have written advance medical directives in advance when healthy is spreading rapidly, reaching 1.57 million. However, 83% 안전놀이터of those who have completed the discontinuation of life-sustaining treatment face a dying situation and the family decides. On the day that many patients sign the life-sustaining treatment plan, the doctor prepares a statement of discontinuation of life-sustaining treatment.
It has been evaluated that cramming like this is far from true well-dying. <Pages 1, 4 , and 5 of the JoongAng Ilbo, April 3, 4> It is to make an explicit decision (related to discontinuation of life-sustaining treatment), and it has nothing to do with medical diagnoses such as terminally ill patients.” It is necessary to expand the duty of education or explanation,” he pointed out.
The National Survival Committee recommended that the problems of nursing hospitals, which were neglected in the blind spot of dying with dignity, be improved. In order to implement the suspension (reservation) of life-sustaining treatment, there must be a medical institution ethics committee (hereinafter referred to as the ethics committee). However, as of the end of last year, there were only 105 out of 1433 nursing hospitals nationwide. So, the person who wrote the life-sustaining treatment plan and life-sustaining treatment plan is hospitalized in a nursing hospital and is taken to the emergency room of a large hospital when he is on his deathbed. The National Health Commission pointed out, “It is not appropriate for the Ethics Committee to be mentioned as an obstacle preventing nursing hospitals from entering the life-sustaining treatment decision system.
The National Life Insurance Commission recommended, “Prepare a legal mechanism for the Ethics Committee or Public Ethics Committee to decide on the termination of life-sustaining treatment on behalf of those without family.” Currently, there is no way for those without relatives to implement the suspension of life-sustaining treatment. The National Health Commission also requested that end-of-life care types be diversified and long-term and short-term service improvement plans established.
Regarding physician-assisted suicide, which was proposed as a legislative initiative in the National Assembly, the National Assembly gave a negative opinion, saying, “In order to introduce a new system that affects the timing of death or to enact or revise related laws, social consensus is needed after sufficient discussion and consideration.” paid Kuksaengwon pointed out that “sufficient and careful consideration is needed for various misuses that may occur due to the introduction of the new system.”