Palliative sedation for terminal ALS man

(ANSA) - Treviso, February 14 - A terminal ALS patient has asked for and been given palliative sedation until death in the first case of its kind in Italy, media reported Tuesday.
    Dino Bettamin, a butcher from Montebelluna near Treviso, died on Monday aged 70.
    He had been suffering from the progressive fatal neurodegenerative disease for five years.
    On Tuesday his wife Maria Pellizzari said the request for palliative sedation had been "a clearheaded life choice" by her husband and the rest of the family, and insisted it was "not euthanasia".
    "It was a clear request for sedation based on a clear refractory symptom, due to anxiety that couldn't be controlled using medication and psychological treatment," the nurses of Cura con Cura, the private company the has provided home health care since 2015, explained. Following an episode of acute respiratory distress on the evening of February 5 the doctor on call increased the dose of sedative already taken by Bettamin and the following day the home care doctor began administering the other medication required by protocol. "He never asked for the life-support system to be switched off, although this is allowed by law in cases of profound sedation," the nurses said.
    "He made a choice in line with the law, bioethics and his great faith." Veneto regional governor Luca Zaia on Tuesday expressed his "greatest respect" for Bettamin's choice.
    "Personally I think that the living will must become a reality in a civil country such as the one that Italy claims to be," he added. "It is pleasing that the pope has also spoken out in this direction, against hostile therapies," Zaia said. "However I think the living will is the resolving precondition for all these cases," he concluded. A controversial bill on end-of-life provisions introducing the possibility for people to state their wishes for end-of-life medical care in the event they become unable to communicate their decisions (living will) is currently before parliament.