Milan, 3 June. It was a “personal and ethical conception of the right to health” that pushed the then general director of Lombardy Health 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 which 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 his daughter to a healthcare facility in Friuli where he died. This was reported by the Milanese edition of Corriere della Sera.
Eluana died on February 9, 2009 at the age of 39, 17 of which were spent in an irreversible vegetative state after a very serious road accident. The year before, the father had been denied the possibility of interrupting the artificial feeding that kept his daughter alive by the general director of Lucchina 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. When Beppino Englaro asked as a guardian to disconnect the tube with which his daughter was being fed, the general director signed a note which said that the health facilities take care of the care of patients and consequently the health workers who had suspended it would have “failed to comply with their their professional obligations”.
Englaro turned to the TAR which accepted his request in January 2009, but the Region did not carry out the sentence and a month later Eluana died. The Region was condemned to pay approximately 175 thousand euros for the damages suffered by the Englaro family. After the TAR’s ruling became final in 2017, the Court of Auditors initiated revenue proceedings against Lucchina: he was acquitted at first instance by the judges, a verdict overturned by the appeal judges who established that the health administration cannot deny the right to refuse treatment protected by the Constitution. The Court defines the no as “the fruit – we read in the sentence – of a personal and authoritative interpretation of the right to life and health”, and neither could consequences be feared for the structures and health workers who had suspended feeding. “It was not a conscientious objection, but the directives also received from the regional lawyers were applied” states the former director who will evaluate whether to appeal to the Supreme Court.
