The Presidency of the Council of Ministers and the Ministry of Health have filed an appeal with the Emilia Romagna Regional Administrative Court against the Region, and specifically against the Health of the Person health management, to request the annulment of the Council resolutions which implement suicide medically assisted in Emilia Romagna. Meloni and Schillaci, therefore. However, the announcement in Bologna was made by Valentina Castaldini, regional councilor of Forza Italia and, from a very young age, committed to bringing the voice of fundamentalist Catholicism into the institutions. The reasons for the legal action are stated in the “lack of power of the body” on the topic and in the “contradiction and illogicality” of the provisions introduced by the Region in the guidelines sent to the healthcare companies.
The shortcomings of the government and the resolution of Emilia Romagna
The reaction of the Region and the Democratic Party were, this time, very firm, also thanks to the very close electoral deadline which could also involve the President of Emilia Romagna Stefano Bonaccini. “The Government’s appeal against Emilia-Romagna on the end of life – said PD deputy Andrea De Maria – indicates that the executive chooses the wrong path of institutional conflict and, instead of acting to define national legislation, attacks those who try to cover, at least in part, an evident regulatory gap”.
And the Region was reminded of its duty to intervene. The mandatory criteria indicated by the Constitutional Court to avoid any arbitrariness were recalled, which the Region believes it has complied with. The patient must be suffering from an irreversible pathology, which causes physical or psychological suffering that the patient considers intolerable, who is kept alive by life-sustaining treatments and is fully capable of making free and informed decisions.” Waiting for a law national level for a topic of such great importance and sensitivity – recalled the councilor for health policies, Raffaele Donini – the commitment to implement what was requested by the High Court was confirmed”.
With a second resolution aimed at improving its first release, the Region believes it has strengthened its motivations, focusing on all the legal steps. “We remember – insisted Donini – that the Regions are called upon to apply what is established by the Court. It was our duty to put the healthcare system in a position to fulfill this obligation in the best possible way.” Moreover, the Ministry of Health had also requested it.”
The path established by the Region for the end of life is anything but hasty. It has a duration of 42 days and in the two resolutions of the Council and in the instructions of the Department of Health the request for medically assisted suicide must be sent, complete with documentation, to the Health Directorate of a Local Health Authority which has three days to send it to the Vast Area Evaluation Commission. This must carry out an initial visit and evaluate the legitimacy of the request with respect to the requirements indicated by the Constitutional Court. Then he has twenty days to conclude the investigation and send it to the established Regional Committee for Clinical Ethics (Corec).
The Committee has seven days to give an opinion, according to which the Evaluation Commission draws up the final report and sends it, within five days, to the patient or his delegate and to the director of the competent local health authority. If approved, the procedure must be carried out – with voluntary staff – no later than seven days from receipt of the Commission’s conclusions.
An entirely political match
The Region feels strongly about these decisions and responds clearly. Thus Bonaccini: “The limit has been crossed. Not only are people’s rights recognized by the Constitutional Court denied, but a political battle is waged on the skin of patients who find themselves in dramatic conditions. Emilia Romagna will defend its actions and above all the right of a patient at the end of life to decide for himself, without having to ask permission from the Government and the right”.
What to add: Meloni and his Government do not disdain using judicial instruments in place of the normal dialectic between the State, the Regions, the Municipalities – as the bad case of Bari teaches – and, to some extent – the citizens themselves, like Professor Camphor. Very different cases, unique posture. But this time the morsel for the Bolognese and Emilian right is very tasty. Cardinal Zuppi, president of the CEI, has at the time taken a position against the first resolution of the Region, there is an opportunity to undermine a common feeling between the center-left and the very active bishop who has so far isolated the right on every major issue, from peace to migration to work.
For Bonaccini the match has a strategic value: he cannot and does not want to deny the speed, wisdom and secularity of the health service which is one of the pillars of the Region, but breaking with Zuppi would have serious consequences. Meanwhile, the not new “trouble” of anti-abortion consultants in hospitals arrives. The Church seems more prudent, but reconfirms that any refusal attacks the part of 194 which outlined tools to limit the practice of abortion as much as possible.
A piece of advice: the Region, the hospitals respond according to rules and rigorous constitutional autonomy, but the centre-left does not limit itself to its own responses, let the people and movements speak. Otherwise the comparison will not emerge from electoral speculation and will be pointed and misleading, as it already appears. The people who suffer from the conditions we are also talking about must have their say.
Tags: life government conflict Emilia Romagna focusing Zuppis
