Reportedly, a doctor can supervise a seriously ill patient taking their own life.
Digital Desk: Columbia has become the first Latin American country to legalise assisted medical suicide for critically ill patients under doctor supervision, a court order stated. Reportedly, a doctor can supervise a seriously ill patient taking their own life.
This implies that the doctor can help the critically ill patient commit suicide by administering a deadly drug. The doctor who assists with this will not suffer any consequences as everything will be done inside the legal framework.
The constitutional order reads, "The doctor who helps someone with great suffering or serious sickness and voluntarily decides to end their own life acts within the constitutional framework."
In 1997, Columbia legalised euthanasia, but only for people with less than six months to live. There is, however, a distinction to be made between euthanasia and assisted suicide. According to the Right to Die with Dignity foundation (DMD), the distinction between the two is "essentially who administers the medicine."
"It is health personnel who provide the medicine that causes death in the case of euthanasia, and it is the patient who self-administers the medicine that another person has provided in the case of assisted suicide," it stated.
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