Læknablaðið : fylgirit - 01.09.1977, Blaðsíða 28

tji’ocedures and medical equipment cf the institution ;
c. to ensure that all oersons have the opportunity to preparr
themselves psychologically co face the fact of death, and to pro-
vide the necessary assistance to this end both through the trea-
ting personnel - doctors, nurses and aids - who should be given
the basic training to enable them to discuss these problems with
persons approaching the end of life, arid through psychiatrists,
clergymen or specialised social workers attached to hospitals;
II. to establish national ccmmissions of enquiry, composed of
representatives of all levels of the medical profession, lawyers,
moral theologians, psychologists and sociologists, to establish
ethical rules for the treatment of persons approaching the end of
life, and to determine the medicai guiding principles for the ap-
plication of extraordinary measures to prolong life, thereby con-
sidering inter alia the situation which may confront members of
the medical profession, such as legal sanctions, whether civil or
penal, when they have refrained from effecting artificial mea-
sures to prolong the death process in the case of terminal pa-
tients, whose lives cannot be saved by present-day medicine, or
have taken positive measures whose primary intention was to re-
lieve suffering in such patients and which could have a subsi-
diary effect on the process of dying, and to examine the question
of written declarations made by legally competent persons, autho-
rising doctors to abstain from life-prolonging measures, in par-
ticular in the case of irrevers'íf ie c^ssation of brain function;
III. to establish, if no comparable organisations already exist,
national commissions to consiaer complaints against medical person-
nel for errors of negligence in the practice of their profession, and
this without prejudice to the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts;
IV. Lo intorm the Councii ox i/urepe ot theii- anaxyti>_ai. Xindings
and conclusions for the purpose of harmonising criteria regarding
the rights of the sick and dying and the legal and technical means
of guaranteeing their application.
RESOLUTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE SICK AND DYING
The Assembly.
1. Believing ... that the true interests of the sick are not al-
ways best served by a zealous application of the most modern tech-
niques for prolonging life;
2. Convinced that what dying patients most want is to die in
peace and dignity, if possible with the comfort and support of
their family and friends;
3. Concerned that unnecessary anguish may be caused by uncert-