… reflections of young Canadian physicians engaged in the euthanasia proposal there … Maximilian Zucchi, Laurence Normand-Rivest … and other voices … John Zucchi, Marc Beauchamp.
“At the end of the session, the patient bid her farewells to the physiotherapist, then turned to me and said: “You know, it’s thanks to people like her that I can say life is worth living.”
These words are a provocation for us all, as workers in the health sector, but also for everyone else; it means that the human who enters into a relation with another evokes in the latter (and indeed onto themselves!) a greater desire and cannot remain passive about it. The patient is above all a human being; it cannot be regarded merely for its illness. We all desire more than mere “physical” healing, our primary need is to be loved. This is dignity.
The true “dignity” that we put forward so often during euthanasia debates in Quebec cannot be carried out by delivering death, but by fixing a new gaze on the patients because their lives are worth being supported. Let us remember this patient’s words as a challenge and a point of departure for embarking on a great adventure!”
Pingback: to accompany the suffering human …
I don’t usually reply to posts but I will in this case.
my God, i thought you were going to chip in with some decisive insght at the end there, not leave it
with ‘we leave it to you to decide’.