Casting Light on an Occultation in the IAHPC Position Paper on Palliative Care and Assisted Dying (original) (raw)

Journal of palliative medicine, 2017

Abstract

Dear Editor: The International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care’s (IAHPC) recent official position statement in this journal aimed to ‘‘describe the position of the IAHPC regarding euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.’’ A group of board members carried out a literature search to ‘‘identify existing position statements from health professional organizations,’’ and ‘‘statements from seven general medical and nursing associations and statements from seven palliative care organizations were identified.’’ The IAHPC endorsed the European Association for Palliative Care’s (EAPC) majority position on euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide (EAS), which stated that EAS is doctrinally ‘‘incompatible with the very foundations of PC.’’ However, this EAPC white paper (which one of us, P.V.B., coauthored) duly reproduced a dissenting minority position from the Benelux countries and called for more debate and further studies. The IAHPC did neither. One is left wondering why, contradicting its claim to have inventorized all position statements worldwide, the IAHPC completely occulted the dissenting position from Flanders (the northern, Dutch-language half of Belgium). In 2003, the Federation of Palliative Care Flanders (FPCF) officially embraced euthanasia as an option within palliative care (PC) upon legally valid patient request and caregiver agreement. The FPCF’s position stated:

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