According to the state body, the former health director was driven by a “personal and ethical conception of the right to health”. For this reason he established for Lucchina the payment to the treasury of approximately 175 thousand euros which the Region had had to reimburse to Eluana’s father, who died on 9 February 2009 at the age of 39, 17 of which were spent in an irreversible vegetative state. “They made a mistake and they have to answer for it”, commented Beppino Englaro
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15 years after the death of Eluana Englaro, the Court of Auditors condemns the former director general of Lombardy Healthcare, Carlo Lucchina. It was a “personal and ethical conception of the right to health” that pushed the then general manager to prevent the woman from interrupting the treatment that kept her in a vegetative state. With this motivation, the state body condemned Lucchina on appeal to pay the treasury approximately 175 thousand euros: this is the same sum that the Region had had to compensate Beppino Englaro, Eluana’s father, who at the time had been forced to transfer her daughter in a healthcare facility in Friuli where she died on 9 February 2009.
Lucchina’s decision
Eluana Englaro was 39 years old when they stopped the artificial feeding that kept her alive. The woman had spent the last 17 years in an irreversible vegetative state due to a very serious road accident and her father Beppino, in 2008, was denied by Lucchina the possibility of stopping the treatments. The decision of the former regional health director prevailed despite the fact that in 2007 the Court of Cassation had established that each individual can refuse the treatment to which he is subjected if he considers it unsustainable and degrading, and in 2008 the Court of Appeal of Milan on this basis had authorized the interruption of treatment.
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The proceedings at the Court of Auditors
In 2008, Carlo Lucchina, faced with Beppino Englaro’s request for suspension of treatment as his daughter’s guardian, signed a note which said that the health facilities take care of the care of patients, which includes nutrition, and consequently the health workers who had they suspended it they would have “failed to fulfill their professional obligations”. Englaro turned to the TAR which accepted his request, but the Region did not carry out the sentence. Meanwhile, Eluana had already been moved to a facility in Udine where she died on the following February 9th. The Lombardy Region was at that point condemned to pay approximately 175 thousand euros for the damages suffered by the Englaro family. Hence the proceedings before the Court of Auditors for Lucchina.
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Beppino Englaro: “They made a mistake and they have to answer for it”
The Court of Auditors’ decision comes 15 years after Eluana’s death. “They could have avoided everything they did, now they realize, it’s clear that they made a mistake and they have to answer for it”, commented Beppino Englaro. “They hindered, I acted legally – explained Eluana’s father – whoever hindered sees it now. I knew I had a right and it was clear that they hindered it, so much so that I had to leave the Region. Now it’s their problem , I had to do justice myself, always within the law and in society, they committed something they shouldn’t have committed. Everything was clear to me even then, I had to ignore them and go my own way.”
