Since 2005, the Leonetti law relating to the end of life has granted patients rights, reinforced by another legislative text dating from 2016. However, according to the National Center for Palliative Care and End of Life (CNSPFV), 9 French people on 10 totally ignore these provisions which protect and support them in their illness.
No therapeutic relentlessness
The laws of 2005 and 2016 give patients, but also healthy people, the opportunity to anticipate their end of life, to express their choices and to appoint a trusted person who will be able to enforce them in the event of a 'inability. Thus, patients have the right to refuse "unreasonable obstinacy", that is to say therapeutic relentlessness when the care is unnecessary, disproportionate or only serves to artificially sustain life. This is the case, for example, with artificial nutrition and hydration.
Patients at the end of life also have the right to request “deep and continuous sedation” until death, especially when there are irreversible and serious complications, and the treatments are not sufficient to alleviate the suffering. This sedation can be carried out at home, in a health establishment or in a structure which accommodates the elderly.
Finally, patients can issue advance directives, documents which express their desire to refuse or continue treatment, to implement artificial life support or to benefit from sedation. The choice of a person of confidence makes it possible, as for him, to express his will if the person is no longer able to do so.
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