“I would like to die with a smile on my face, in the country where I chose to live, and where I paid my taxes.” It is the video appeal to the parliamentarians of Martina Oppelli, 49 years old, suffering from multiple sclerosis since the age of 28, who warned the Giuliano Isontina University Health Company (Asugi) after the refusal to access “medically assisted suicide”, as announced by the Luca Coscioni association.
The woman said that hers was not suicide but euthanasia and she could soon “be forced” to go to Switzerland to access voluntary assisted dying. “I am totally dependent on others. How do I eat? How do I drink?”, she asks in the video.
As the Coscioni association explains, Martina Oppelli in August 2023 she had sent a request to verify the conditions to access voluntary assisted dying at Asugi, but after being visited by the multidisciplinary medical commission in October 2023, she had not received a response.
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After a series of reminders, Asugi informed her that “she could not accept the request because the requirement for life-sustaining treatment would not be met”.
In February Martina Oppelli, assisted by Coscioni’s legal team, warned the health company to proceed with the immediate re-evaluation of his health conditions. “The health company, however, denied this possibility, claiming that it had no obligation to review its previous provision and that this request for review conflicts with the principle of economy in public administration”, continues the association.
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Now Martina Oppelli “has filed, through its lawyers, an urgent appeal to request that Asugi be ordered to re-evaluate the requirement of “life-sustaining treatment” and to identify the lethal drug, its quantities and the method of self-administration in order to be able to access medically assisted suicide in Italy”.
Martina Oppelli she is an architect – a profession that she continues to practice thanks to voice commands in order to afford the continuous assistance she needs. Her diagnosis is advanced secondary progressive multiple sclerosis with very serious motor limitations, with widespread pain and spasms that are poorly controlled by therapy which make her totally dependent on third parties to carry out every activity.”
Cappato: “Parliament must not turn its head the other way”
“I hope that the national Parliament will not turn its head the other way, but I have no illusions. If Martina is forced to go to Switzerland, I assured her that we will provide any help that may be necessary, as part of our civil disobedience actions” . She said it Marco Cappatotreasurer of the “Luca Coscioni” Association, commenting on the video of Martina Oppelli, the 49-year-old quadriplegic from Trieste who in a video said she was ready to go to Switzerland to benefit from euthanasia.
