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Tit for tat over euthanasia guidelines

Posted April. 13, 2001 13:37,   

한국어

Lawyers and medical circles generally agreed to the stipulation in the doctor`s ethical guidelines worked out by the Korea Medical Association (KMA) that doctors may accept demands by patients who are unable to recover or from their families to withhold treatment or to be discharged from the hospital. It is a generally accepted practice to stop treatment if patients or their guardians request it.

However, if it is broadly applied, that could open the door to unethical acts of withholding treatment. If such an act is proved, the person could be accused on charges of murder.

The controversial clause in the guidelines is that a doctor could stop treatment by his or her own decision if the family of a patient whose disease is incurable requests it.

Euthanasia is classified into `active euthanasia,` which is killing a patient by injecting lethal chemicals or gas at the demand of the patient, and `passive euthanasia,` which is to withhold artificial breathing apparatuses from a patient who is suffering from an incurable disease.

The medical circle steadily has been raising the question of filing documentation in case it is agreed by patients or their families since the 1998 incident at Seoul`s Boramae Hospital. Doctors thought that a doctor at Boramae Hospital had been accused of murder, as he had released a patient at the request of the patient`s wife, and the patient later died at home.

Lawyer Shin Hyun-Ho said that the ruling on the Boramae Hospital case accused the doctor of murder because he had released a curable patient, noting that it didn`t apply the charge of passive euthanasia. He pointed out that the existing law doesn`t clearly prohibit passive euthanasia.

A professor at Seoul National University said that nobody knows the pain that families have to suffer while watching patients dying. Also, the option of passive euthanasia is necessary when considering the enormous medical cost of prolonging life in some cases.

Another professor at Yonsei University said that patients suffering from incurable diseases are spending nearly 25 percent to 30 percent of their lifetime medical costs in one month before they die. He contended that euthanasia is necessary to reduce useless medical costs, as well as to protect the patient`s family, and it is helpful for financial health of medical insurance.

Still, some experts point out that some murderous acts can be performed within the framework of passive euthanasia if there is no precise guideline on the possibility of a patient`s survival. In this connection, another Boramae Hospital incident could happen.

Park Sang-Eun, secretary general of the Christian Life Ethics Council, said that to prevent misjudgments by doctors and let curable patients die, there has to be a precise guideline, as well as the establishment of a hospital ethics committee.

Chang Byung-Don, a company worker in Taegu, 37, said that it would be a problem if doctors spoil the dream of people who wish to extend the life of their parents by their own decision, although euthanasia could be allowed when both patient`s family and doctors judge the patient is incurable.

``It is most desirable to allow passive euthanasia with the consent from the patient`s families in order to lessen the financial burden stemming from unnecessary medical treatment,`` Lee Yoon-Sung, a legal specialist at the KMA, said.



Lee Sung-Joo stein33@donga.com