The Cergy-Pontoise administrative court ordered the Pontoise hospital to continue the treatments which artificially keep a 74-year-old patient alive, in a coma for a month. In an order made on Tuesday, the judge in summary proceedings, seized by one of the patient's children opposed to the cessation of treatment, ordered the René-Dubos hospital center in Pontoise (Val-d'Oise) to "not put implement ”the decision taken by the doctors unfavorable to its artificial maintenance alive, January 30.
At the end of several examinations and a collegial procedure, the doctor in charge of the septuagenarian, hospitalized since January 17 due to a coma following a cerebrovascular accident, had concluded in an "absence of neurological improvement" without "therapeutic solution curative possible ”, and had informed the family.
Not an "outdated" coma
The administrative justice had chosen to appoint an expert to obtain a new opinion on the patient's condition, irreversible or not. The purpose of these expert reports is in particular to determine whether the continuation of treatment is unreasonable obstinacy, a cornerstone of the Claeys-Leonetti law on end of life. However, in his conclusions submitted on February 10, the expert indicates that stopping treatment, that is, the end of feeding and hydration, is "difficult to envisage" because the patient is not in a coma " exceeded ”.
"The mere fact that an elderly patient is in a" deep "coma without hope of improvement cannot in itself characterize a situation in which the continuation of treatment would appear unjustified in the name of the refusal of the patient. 'unreasonable obstinacy', considers the administrative court.
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- End of life
- Pontoise
- Paris