Italy: first legal death by assisted suicide for a paralyzed man

The first person to benefit from assisted suicide in Italy died late Thursday morning (illustration image).

© ZaldyImg/Flickr/Wikipedia

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

In Italy, a new page on end-of-life rights is opening.

For the first time, a 40-year-old quadriplegic for 12 years - whose story had been relayed by the media around the world - was able, as he requested, to put an end to his ordeal.

Advertising

Read more

With our correspondent in Rome,

“

 ”, these are the last words pronounced by Federico Carboni, 44 years old, presented so far under the pseudonym of Mario.

A truck driver, he became a quadriplegic in 2010 after a road accident.

He had had his spine broken.

Federico had been waiting to take action, since the 2019 Constitutional Court sentence which decriminalized assisted suicide, provided, among other things, that the pathology of the adult patient is irreversible.

He had repeatedly asked the health authorities of the Marches, a region in the center of the country where he resides,

.

This authorization had been refused to him until the intervention of the team of lawyers of the Association Luca Coscioni.

Legal loopholes

He died at home after finally receiving the lethal drug and a self-injection device.

He was surrounded by an anesthetist and members of the Luca Coscioni association, which campaigns for the right to assisted suicide and euthanasia.

It is this association which launched a call for funds to pay for the device and the medicine at a cost of 5,000 euros. 

As Parliament has not yet adopted the bill on assisted suicide, there are still legal voids, in particular for the payment of costs by the public health services.

►Also read: In Italy, medically assisted suicide under debate in Parliament

Newsletter

Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_EN

• Italy

• Health and medicine