It was a “personal and ethical conception of the right to health” that pushed the then general director of Lombardy Healthcare Carlo Lucchina to prevent Eluana Englaro from having the treatment that kept her in a vegetative state interrupted. This was written by the Court of Auditors who condemned Lucchina on appeal to pay the treasury approximately 175 thousand euros which the Region had had to compensate Beppino Englaro who had been forced to transfer the girl to a healthcare facility in Friuli where he died. «It wasn’t a conscientious objectionbut the directives also received from the regional attorney’s office were applied”, states the former general manager who will evaluate whether to appeal to the Supreme Court.
More than 15 years after her death, the sad story of Eluana Englaro has not yet concluded definitively. The woman died on February 9, 2009 at the age of 39, 17 of which were spent in a vegetative state irreversible after a very serious road accident. The year before, Beppino Englaro had been denied the possibility of interrupting the artificial feeding that kept his daughter alive by the general director of Luchina despite the fact that in 2007 the Supreme Court, with a historic ruling, had established that each individual can refuse treatment to which he is subjected to if he considers them unsustainable and degrading, and in 2008 the Court of Appeal of Milan authorized the interruption of treatment on this basis. Not a right to euthanasia, i.e. assisted suicide, but respect for the choice of the patient who wants the disease to follow its natural course without treatment. If this choice had been expressed before losing the capacity of understanding and will, the decision can be taken by the guardian, the judges had specified.
When Beppino Englaro asked as a guardian to remove the tube with which his daughter was fed, the general director signed a note that said that the health facilities take care of the care of patients, which includes nutrition, and consequently the health workers who had they suspended they would be have “failed to fulfill their professional obligations”.
Englaro turned to the Regional Administrative Court which in January 2009 accepted his request, but the Region did not carry out the sentence and a month later Eluana died in a facility in Udine where her treatment was stopped. LThe Region was sentenced to pay approximately 175 thousand euros for damages suffered by the Englaro family, including the costs of hospitalization in Friuli.
After the TAR ruling became final in 2017, the Court of Auditors initiated revenue proceedings against Lucchina. He was acquitted at first instance by the judges according to whom his decision had been “considered” following an investigation by the Pirellone Lawyers’ Office and after a press release from the Ministry of Health according to which regional health facilities were not obliged to suspend assistance.
Verdict overturned by the appellate judges who, upon appeal by the Prosecutor’s Office led by Paolo Evangelista, established that the health administration cannot deny the right to refuse treatment protected by the Constitution. The Court, specifying that it does not judge the ethical convictions of the CEO, defines the no as a “blatant violation of one’s duties of service”, an “absolute refusal” which was “the result – we read in the sentence – of a personal and authoritative interpretation of the law to life and health”, nor could there be any fear of consequences for the facilities and health workers who had suspended feeding.
