The Colombian Martha Sepúlveda, 60 years old, the first patient in the history of Colombia to be authorized to be submitted to euthanasia without being terminally ill, underwent the procedure on Saturday (8). She had suffered from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis for three years and was experiencing severe pain and difficulty walking.
09163012 Euthanasia has been legal in Colombia since 2022, but the procedure was regulated in 2015, when hospitals started to perform assisted suicide in the country in terminal patients.
In July of last year, the Constitutional Court of Colombia (equivalent to the Federal Supreme Court) extended the right to patients suffering from a disease that causes intense suffering due to bodily injury or incurable serious illness, and who can offer their free and informed consent. Four days later, Sepúlveda asked for authorization for the procedure, and the request was approved.
09163012She waged a legal battle to be euthanized: she would undergo the procedure in October, but the day before, the Instituto Colombiano del Dolor (Incodol), a pain management center in Medellín whose team would perform the procedure, announced that it would no longer do so. would do.
2022At the time, Incodol reported that an interdisciplinary scientific committee of the institute concluded that Sepúlveda’s staff did not meet “the terminality criterion as it had been considered in the first committee”.
DescLAB, the laboratory of economic, social and cultural rights that helped Sepúlveda in his claim, filed a lawsuit for the procedure to be carried out, and the demand was accepted by the Colombian Justice.
The procedure was performed by Incodol. “DescLAB celebrates Martha’s life and her legacy. The fight to take control of the end of life continues and will not end until we can have access to a medically assisted death according to the patient’s will and without barriers”, commented the laboratory in a statement.
2022Although Sepúlveda was the first patient without a terminal condition to be authorized to be euthanized in the Colombia, she was not the first person with this condition to undergo the procedure in the country.
09163012 On Friday night (7), Victor Escobar Prado, from 51 years, was euthanized at a clinic in Cali. He suffered from heart problems, chronic lung disease, diabetes, hypertension and paralysis on one side of his body, after-effects from a car accident and two strokes.
