Life support ends for vegetative man
REIMS: French doctors yesterday began switching off the life support of a quadriplegic man who has been in a vegetative state for the last decade, in a controversial case that has divided France.
The dispute over the fate of Vincent Lambert has split his own family and even become a subject of political tension in the country ahead of the weekend's European elections.
His parents, Pierre and Viviane, both devout Catholics, have launched court action to keep him alive — in defiance of his wife and five siblings who are in favour of his right to die.
Doctors said the halt to his lifesupport would start yesterday following a final judicial ruling to end the nutrition and hydration Vincent receives at Sebastopol Hospital in the northern city here.
Jean Paillot, the lawyer for Vincent’s parents, called it “shameful”, adding: “They (the parents) could not even embrace their son.”
Other family sources also confirmed the systems were being switched off for the 42-year-old, who was left quadriplegic with severe brain damage after a car accident in 2008.
The parents’ legal team had on Sunday vowed to launch multiple legal challenges in a last-ditch bid to stop the systems being switched off.
Dr Vincent Sanchez, the doctor treating Vincent who has been the target of the parents’ anger, said in a message to the family that the “halting of treatments” and “profound and continued sedation” had been initiated.
In the message, he urged everyone to “rally around him (Vincent Lambert) so these moments are as peaceful, intimate and personal and possible”.
The parents’ lawyers had at the weekend said they wanted Dr Sanchez removed from the case and also struck off France’s medical register. The parents’ lawyers accused Dr Sanchez of “violating all his obligations” while adding that “there is still time to stop this madness”.
The family has been torn asunder by the case.
Vincent’s wife, Rachel, five of his siblings and his nephew, Francois, have all backed the decision to begin switching off the systems, agreeing this is the humane path given his condition.
In 2014, doctors, backed by Vincent’s wife and other family members, decided to stop his nutrition and hydration in line with France’s passive euthanasia law.
But his parents, and his halfbrother and sister obtained a court order to block the move on grounds his condition might improve with better treatment.
But early this year, a court sided with Dr Sanchez’s decision to stop keeping Vincent alive.
The ruling was upheld last month by France’s State Council.
The United Nations committee on disabled rights had asked France to suspend the decision to withdraw the life support while it conducts its own investigation, which could take years.
Health Minister Agnes Buzyn said France would answer the committee, but was not legally required to abide by its request.
The issue has also become a political controversy in the runup to this weekend’s European elections.
Francois-Xavier Bellamy, a candidate in the European Parliament elections for the opposition Les Republicains, said he “could not understand the hurry” to switch off the support and called on President Emmanuel Macron to intervene.
“If we enter down a dangerous path which consists of saying a life that is dependent, one that is fragile, sick, is not one worth being lived, then we will build an inhumane world,” he said.
He said that there were 1,500 patients in a similar position to Vincent in France.
But Nathalie Loiseau, who is standing for Macron’s party in the elections, said the president could not reverse a court order.
“All he (Macron) can do is pardon someone who has been condemned and this is different to what the parents of Vincent are requesting,” she said, acknowledging that the parents were going though a tragedy.