One”personal and ethical conception of the right to health” pushed the then general director of Healthcare of Lombardy, Carlo Lucchinato prevent a Eluana Englaro the treatment that kept her in a vegetative state was interrupted. The one who wrote it down in black and white Court of Auditors in condemning the Lombard manager on appeal to pay the treasury approximately 175 thousand euros that the Region had paid to Beppino Englaro as compensation because the latter had been forced to transfer his daughter to a health facility in Friuli, where he died. A decision that comes more than fifteen years after that event which soon had an echo in the national media and which split Italian public opinion in two.
It was in fact February 9th 2009 when Eluana Englaro died at the age of 39, 17 of which were spent in an irreversible vegetative state after a very serious road accident. The year before, father Beppino had been denied the possibility of stop artificial feeding who kept his daughter alive by the general director Luchina despite the fact that in 2007 the Supreme Court of Cassation, with a historic ruling, had established that each individual can refuse the treatment to which he is subjected if he considers it unsustainable and degrading. Based on this verdict, in 2008 the Court of Appeal of Milan he had instead authorized the interruption of treatment. As a guardian, Englaro asked to disconnect the tube with which her daughter was fed, but the general director signed a note that said that the health facilities take care of the care of patients and consequently the health workers who had suspended her would come “less to their professional obligations“.
Englaro turned to the Tar and, in January 2009, his request was granted. However the Lombardy region did not carry out the sentence. These are the weeks in which Italian politics began to discuss this affair, which also caused a heavy institutional rift between the then Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and the head of state at the time, Giorgio Napolitano. The government, in fact, approved a decree aimed at prohibiting the suspension of patients’ nutrition and hydration in any case and throughout the national territory: the Quirinale, however, did not sign it. The executive then tried to transform the decree into a bill, with the presidents of the Chambers Fini and Schifani convening the Parliament in extraordinary session to try to pass the law in a few days. But it was all in vain. The news of the death arrives in the Senate while the discussion of the same bill is underway: Eluana’s death occurred in a facility in Udine where treatment was stopped.
The Region was condemned to pay approximately 175 thousand euros for the damages suffered by the Englaro family, including the costs of hospitalization in Friuli. Then we arrive in 2017, when the TAR’s ruling became final. Here the Court of Auditors started a revenue proceedings against Lucchina: he was acquitted at first instance by the judges, but the sentence was overturned by the appeal judges who established that the health administration cannot deny the right to refuse treatment protected by the Constitution. The dispositive states that the Court defines no as “fruit of a personal and authoritative interpretation of the right to life and health“, nor could there be any fear of consequences for the structures and health workers who had suspended the power supply.
“It wasn’t a conscientious objection, but they were apply the directives received also of the regional attorney’s office“, now states the former general manager who will evaluate whether to appeal Cassation.
