For the first time in years Víctor Escobar stopped taking most of the medications he was prescribed, including one that prevented the bleeding caused by a lung disease. He will no longer need them. Escobar became the first Colombian to receive euthanasia without being a terminal patient on Friday night.
“I feel immense calm, I am not afraid of what is to come,” Escobar, 60, told The Associated Press a few hours before he died. “ I have been told that the procedure is going to be a slow sedation first, so that I have time to say goodbye. Then there is the euthanasia injection, which is going to be something painless, a very peaceful death. I trust in God that all this is so”, he said with a weak voice while resisting an abdominal pain.His lawyer Luis Giraldo confirmed the death of his client.
Escobar is the first beneficiary of the historic ruling of the Constitutional Court, which in July 2021 changed the rules of euthanasia in the country and allowed it to be applied to people who suffer intense physical or mental suffering due to a serious and incurable disease without being in the terminal phase.Colombia decriminalized euthanasia in 1997 but only for terminally ill patients with less than six months to live.From his apartment in Cali, where he was born and died, Escobar is aware of the importance of his case, unprecedented in Latin America: “It is the door for a patient like me, with degenerative diseases, to have the opportunity to fight for a dignified death.” . In countries like El Salvador, Bolivia and Panama, euthanasia is not allowed, nor in Peru, although the judges there made an exception last year with a woman suffering from an incurable disease that only applies to her case. In Chile, the Congress is processing a bill that would allow it and which lacks the approval of the Senate. In Argentina and Mexico euthanasia is not authorized, but there are laws that allow patients to refuse treatment to artificially prolong their life in case of suffering.
Escobar’s ailments no longer ceased even with morphine. He received palliative care and, although it worked at first, it no longer had the same effect. The main cause of them were the two cerebrovascular accidents he suffered in 2008, which caused him to lose the mobility of half of his body, although he later partially recovered it. Then Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) was added for which he depended on oxygen to breathe. He also suffered from hypertension, diabetes, severe osteoarthritis and chondrocostal joint syndrome. His legal battle to obtain euthanasia began two and a half years ago. She was denied twice by clinics and judges for not meeting the requirement of being in the terminal phase of her illness.”It was a complicated issue to face justice, political parties, religion and many people with power being someone who only had the media,” Giraldo told the AP.It was a reserved procedure and the name of the clinic where it was performed was not disclosed. Although assisted death is legal, it is stigmatized in Colombia, as demonstrated by the case of Martha Sepúlveda, who in October 2021 had the procedure canceled hours before carrying it out . One of the reasons was his appearance in the media, which caused the clinic’s medical committee to change its initial verdict. Sepúlveda, who suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, was going to be the first non-terminal patient to receive euthanasia. The procedure has already been endorsed by a judge, but has not yet been carried out. Escobar said goodbye to his three children, his wife, his brother and his cousins at a lunch. “I am going to have the opportunity for them to offer me their family warmth and their accompaniment and also on my behalf to thank them… I love my family with all my soul. It will be a day of rejoicing for us and I hope it will be something very private”, he indicated.Escobar decided to take the flags of the defense of euthanasia so that it is not a legal battle but an effective right. His message was addressed to doctors and politicians, especially congressmen, to pass laws that regulate euthanasia in non-terminal patients. In November, the Colombian Congress rejected a project that asked to regulate the right to a dignified death, as it did not obtain the necessary votes to continue its process.Congressman Christian Garcés explained to the AP that he opposed the bill because he considers that it is an issue that cannot be taken “lightly” and that, if approved, it would favor not so much the patients but the companies that provide medical services. health, because they would be “freed” from millionaire costs to treat diseases.”If euthanasia is opened as a medical practice, we would be legitimizing murder, where abandoned and humble people would end up taking their own lives and many health professionals and companies will not be able to appeal to their conscientious objection because a law obliges them,” he added. Although the surveys show less and less resistance to euthanasia, there is still a sector of the Colombian population that rejects it. The Catholic Church issued a statement in July in which it maintained that “any action or omission with the intention of causing death to suppress pain constitutes homicide.”In any case, Escobar was firm in his decision.“If we ask for a dignified death, it is because the exhaustion of all the diseases has already defeated us, for us life ended a long time ago”, he maintained from the sofa of his humble house, whose mortgage He paid with a pension of 250 dollars.
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