Colombian patient ends life with government backing
Associated Press
Dr. Gustavo Quintana walks out of a modest, two-floor apartment building in Bogota. Inside his black doctor’s bag are vials containing anesthesia and muscle relaxants, a syringe and a rubber tourniquet. The man known in Colombia as Dr. Death has just ended the life of his 234th patient: a middle-aged woman suffering from incurable stomach cancer.
For years, Quintana and a handful of other physicians have performed what they consider mercy killings in a semi-clandestine state, at risk of prosecution and amid widespread rejection from other doctors and church officials.
But their work took a step out of the shadows on Friday when, after weeks of heated public debate and last-minute legal challenges, 79-year-old Ovidio Gonzalez became the first Colombian to die as a result of government-sanctioned euthanasia.
Gonzalez died at a hospital in Pereira after suffering from terminal mouth cancer the past five years. His death is the first in accordance with an April decree by the Health Ministry mandating that clinics perform the procedure when requested by terminally ill patients.
A Constitutional Court ruling 17 years ago made Colombia the first and still only country in Latin America, and one of just a handful worldwide, to allow euthanasia. The ruling was based on justices’ interpretation of a constitutional clause guaranteeing Colombians the right to live — and presumably die — with dignity.
But Congress never passed laws regulating the procedure, as the high court had ordered, leaving the issue in a state of legal limbo. In April the Health Ministry finally intervened, providing the regulatory guidelines for insurers and hospitals.
Religious groups and many doctors were outraged by the new rules, which require all hospitals to form medical committees to evaluate a patient’s request for euthanasia. Local Roman Catholic leaders threatened to close the dozens of hospitals the church runs in Colombia if required to carry out what it considers murder, and Colombia’s conservative inspector general tried to block application of the rules.
Dr. Gabriela Sarmiento, a hospice specialist with health care provider Colsanitas, said there likely won’t be a flood of patients taking advantage of the new liberties. In the nearly three months since the government’s decree, the two hospitals she works at have received just five such requests, two of which were withdrawn.
Sarmiento said when given the option of living with pain or dying immediately, “most people opt for the path of palliative care.”
Members of Colombia’s right-to-die movement nonetheless are celebrating. Colombia is among a handful of countries including Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland that have either legalized or decriminalized assisted suicide for the terminally ill. Four U.S. states — Oregon, Washington, Montana and Vermont — also have laws on the books.
“The ambiguity of the law provoked a lot of fear among doctors,” said Carmenza Ochoa, president of Colombia’s Right to Die with Dignity foundation.
Quintana says barely a week goes by without him receiving a phone call from a patient or family member looking to end their agony. Most of the procedures he performs are in people’s homes, with the patient surrounded by loved ones.
During the nine minutes the procedure typically lasts, he whispers the same soothing mantra while injecting a mixture of lethal drugs: “Rest, you’re going to sleep for the last time, a restorative sleep.”