The serious French patient Alain Cocq has managed to die voluntarily, but traveling to Switzerland
- The famous Alain Cocq, who has been suffering from a serious and incurable illness since his youth, was held in 2020 by two hunger strikes, claiming the right to die with dignity. He had been denied euthanasia because, despite having a very complicated life, he did not run the risk of death immediately, while in the French State anyone who tried to help Cocq commit suicide would have to face the prison sentence. Considering that he has already made enough protests to change the laws, he has come to an association in Switzerland that enables assisted suicide and has died on 15 June, according to eyewitnesses, "quiet and peaceful".
In November 2020, ARGIA mentioned, among others, the case of Alain Cocq in the report "Self-managed euthanasia, when severe pain cannot wait for the law to be amended". This 54-year-old neighbor had been immersed in a strange and serious illness that he suffered from since his youth. The man, who had always tried to make political life as active as possible among his impotence, believing that the burdens of the disease could no longer be borne, called all the gates of euthanasia. He finally asked President Emmanuel Macron to authorize doctors to sedate him. There was no answer.
Cocq had no choice but suicide, but the man absolutely incapable of moving from the bed needed help from someone else and that, helping someone's suicide, is severely punished by French law. Last spring, police recorded the homes of 11 militants of the association Ultime Liberté, in defense of a dignified death, after alerting the French police that they had been looking for a lethal drug on the Internet. All of them were smart people, over 70 years old, trying to buy the barbiturate Nembutal (Pentobarbital, known worldwide and also used among us for euthanasia of veterinary animals, which causes death in a few minutes) to help those who have decided to die for uninhabitability.
With the entry into a tight port, Cocq used the last instrument he had in his hand to achieve death twice in 2020: to give up eating and treatments. With a hunger strike, thirst and rejection of all medications, including morphine, the doctor hoped they would sedate him as a relief of intolerable pity and suffering. None of that happened. He could not endure the pain and had to ask again to take him to the clinic to hydrate and to put palliative.
In the belief that in France he had struggled enough to change the laws and die with dignity, Cocq had to accept as the last option that assisted suicide would go to Switzerland, where it is legally regulated and ask for help from a local association. He died on 15 June, but not without the outbreak of the last battle after death: the media have opened Alain Cocq’s last letter to the French presidents, governments and parliamentarians. "I hereby inform you that I have died in dignity in the framework of a suicide procedure assisted in Suintza." After reproaching Macron that in order to resolve his situation in France he would only have allowed him to give a pentobarbital to doctors, he thanked the Members who have tried to open legal channels to resolve cases such as his own and asked everyone to improve the law of dignified death.
Cocq has been helped by a partnership to cover travel and death costs in Switzerland, ranging from 8,000 to 10,000 euros.
.jpg)
These were my last words when we left, held hand in your deep breathing sleep. Your heart stayed forever without a special, simple, dignified pain. As you want and demand. How we want and respect.
Already a month before the arrival of winter, the last days of the longest night,... [+]
The international day of dignified death was celebrated on 2 November. In this regard, by means of this letter I would like to state how I see the situation in the Basque Country in this matter.
We are aware that the subject of death is not to your liking to many friends,... [+]
Eusko Jaurlaritzak jakinarazi du 34 eskaera jaso dituztela Eutanasiaren Legea ekainean indarrean sartu zenetik; hamahiru laguni hiltzeko laguntza medikoa eman diete, eutanasia egin aurretik hil dira zortzi, beste eskakizun bati uko egin diote eta gainerako hamabiak... [+]
At the time of writing these lines, sixty people have died at the headquarters of the Fiella-Sant Hospital Foundation of Tremp in Lleida as a result of an outbreak of COVID-19. This means that in less than a month 40 per cent of the 143 residents have died, 1 per cent of the... [+]
