Approved the Law of rights and guarantees for the individual in the process of dying

On March,  28th the Law of rights and guarantees for the individual in the process of dying was approved in the Official Bulletin of the Balearic Islands.

According to Article 2, there are three objectives of this law:

• Protecting human dignity in the process of dying
• Ensure the patient´s autonomy and respect to his will in the process of dying, including those expressed in advance by advanced will declarations.
• Provide quality care to the recipients of the Law.

Title I contains general provisions: purpose, scope of application, principles underlying the Law, and the definitions of the terms used throughout the articles.

In Title II the rights of individuals are collected to the dying process. Primarily it is the right to health care information, decision-making and care information, to refuse treatment or intervention or revoke consent prior to the possibility of drafting a declaration of advanced will declaration, to the accompaniment. The regulation also sets out these rights in case of disability or for persons of minor age and the right to receive palliative care, pain treatment and sedation.

Title III refers to the duties of healthcare professionals correlative to the rights established in the previous Title.

Title IV establishes the guarantees to be provided by health or social and health institutions to safeguard the rights under the law and creates the figure of Ethics Committees, whose composition and functioning will develop regulations.

Finally, Title V regulates a system of offenses and penalties for breach of the duties imposed by the statute.

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