Alain Cocq suffers from an orphan disease and decided to stop eating and hydrating from Friday and filming his agony.

Patient and caregiver associations have been waiting for months for a new one for palliative care.

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AFP

Alain Cocq, seriously suffering from an incurable orphan disease, confirmed Thursday his decision to cease all treatment and all food from this Friday at the end of the day, without a response from the Elysee to his request to help him die.

“I have no news from the presidency.

As a result, Friday evening I stop all hydration, diet, care, apart from comfort care such as morphine, ”Alain Cocq told AFP.

The patient did not, however, totally lose hope in a presidential response.

Following a letter he had sent to the French presidency, Alain Cocq had obtained, on August 25, a conference call with an Elysee counselor during which he had asked that President Emmanuel Macron authorize a doctor to prescribe him a barbiturate so that he can "go away in peace".

According to Cocq, Macron is the only one, under his presidential pardon power, to be able to do so.

The patient, however, has not totally lost hope in a presidential response, even if it is likely to arrive too late.

"I think that the Élysée, the jurists and the constitutional experts are seeing how they could solve the problem that my file poses to them because they do not want to pass for inhuman beings", he said .

Cocq, 57, suffers from an extremely rare disease where the walls of his arteries stick together, resulting in ischemia (stopping or insufficient circulation of blood in a tissue or organ).

Alain Cocq will broadcast his end of life, which he estimates will last "four-five days"

Bedridden and increasingly diminished, Mr. Cocq would like to be authorized for deep sedation but the latter is currently only allowed under the Leonetti law on the end of life for a few hours of certain death. .

For lack of authorization, Cocq will let himself die, "on September 4 at bedtime."

And, in order to “show the French what the agony required by the Leonetti law is”, Alain Cocq will broadcast his end of life, which he estimates will last “four-five days”, starting on Saturday morning upon waking up, “Live on (his) Facebook page”.

He thus hopes that his fight will survive him so that, later, a new law will be adopted to allow "the ultimate care", that is to say that which makes it possible to shorten "inhuman suffering".

“My fight will be lasting,” he assures us.

Health

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Disabled, Alain Cocq threatens to broadcast his agony live to benefit from euthanasia

  • Elysium

  • Disease

  • End of life

  • Euthanasia

  • Society

  • Emmanuel Macron