Korea gears up to deal with ‘death with dignity’

The government is planning to push for a legal revision allowing cessation of life support for terminally-ill patients in order to guarantee peaceful and less painful deaths.

The authorities are to form a consultative group and a hearing board by end of the month to raise public awareness and speed the necessary discussion for the institutionalization of the “death with dignity.”

Death with dignity refers to cessation of excessive treatments such as life support administered to simply extend the lives of people in the last phases of an incurable disease. The practice is dreaded by many people, especially from religious circles, who fear it could lead to a form of an assisted suicide in the end. The government stresses that the death with dignity is different from euthanasia.

According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, a consultative group on the death of dignity will be formed under the National Bioethics Committee, comprised of experts from the medical, legal and ethical circles. They are expected to come up with suggestions for the future guidelines of the practice.

A separate body of 20-30 citizens who can suggest ideas and campaign on the issue will also be set up.

The authority’s moves came as demand for cessation of excessive treatment for terminally ill patients is growing in the medical field.

A government official said they believe that three or four people reportedly seek the removal of respirators every week. A 2010 Seoul National University Hospital survey found that 90 percent of terminally ill gastric cancer patients have refused to use life support.

Death with dignity has been a subject of debate since 2009, when doctors removed a life support from 77-year-old lung cancer patient Kim Ok-kyung after her family won Supreme Court approval. Her family claimed that Kim expressed her intent to refuse excessive and meaningless treatment when she was healthier. Though the respirator was removed, Kim lived for another 201 days.

Since then, the government has sought the institutionalization of the practice. The welfare ministry has gradually expanded its support for hospice facilities and campaigned to change people’s minds on life support cessation.

As a result, in a recent survey, 72 percent agreed to the removal of life support for patients in the last phase of their terminally ill condition.

“People prefer to stay conscious, happy, spend quality time with their loved ones than to live on unconscious and tormented until the minute they die,” said professor Heo Dae-seog of the Seoul National University School of Medicine in a previous interview.

Heo suggested the hospice system as an alternative, which encourages humane and compassionate care so that the patients may live as fully and comfortably as possible.

Still, the relevant law is essential due to several controversies, insiders said.

“We need to draw up a clear guideline on who could be subject to the practice and to what extent their requests could be accepted. We also need to agree on whether the opinion of a third party has the same legal binding as a written request by the patients themselves. In many cases, the family members of the patients ask for the cessation,” the ministry official said.

By Bae Ji-sook (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)