"It is not easy to die like this, but she was no longer in this life and she did not want to be"

Eskarne passed away on July 23 at the age of 86. She died as she wished, in her bedroom at home, surrounded by family members and with the help of doctors. He is the first person to have been euthanized in the Basque Country. In record time, in less than a month from the entry into force on June 25, of the law that regulates the right to request and receive assistance to die in certain cases of incurable disease or that causes unbearable suffering. Eskarne's son explains that “dying is something very intimate and it is not necessary to give personal details”. The family wants to remain anonymous, although it has agreed to tell EL PAÍS about the experience, "very intense and positive," says the son, since they activated the protocol to accept euthanasia until the last goodbye to her was officiated."He decided to die like this, it was an act of great courage and at the same time exemplary for the society in which we live," explains this relative.

More information

• The members of the commissions who have the last word in euthanasia may not be objectors.

• Process, cases, deadlines: questions and answers about the euthanasia law

Ten years ago Eskarne registered the advance directive document in which he expressed his desire to benefit from euthanasia. Even then, when she was in full use of her mental faculties, explains her son, "she was very clear that she was ready to end life." Heart ailments and end-stage health gradually consumed her, until she was continuously bedridden, without mobility in recent months and with a "dependency for all activities of daily life," according to all medical reports. The doctors confirmed that he suffered from “severe cognitive impairment” and in his case there were no “curative therapeutic alternatives”. For the family, the situation was "very evident" and left "no room for doubt."Eskarne met all the legal requirements for euthanasia. He had asked to "die with dignity" in a decision that was personal, firm, free and thoughtful.

In her living will, she wrote that for her the quality of life is "a primary value", understood as "absence of suffering and absence of dependence for basic activities of daily life." "For many years," Eskarne said in 2011, "I believe that life in this world must include the ability to feel, think and choose, to communicate and share." And he added in his last wishes: “I cannot consider as valid or of sufficient quality that life that prevents me from developing, with reasonable autonomy, the basic activities of daily life, because it would be incompatible with my beliefs and values ​​to remain permanently and irreversible with that quality of life in a minimal and irreversible degree ”.

Eskarne had no doubts and had anticipated events: “If that were the circumstance of great dependence, which for me would be an unbearable suffering in which I find myself in the future, I would not want to live like this anymore, so I would quick, painless and active euthanasia techniques were applied to me ”.

His wishes have been fulfilled to the letter a decade later.

On June 25, the same day that the euthanasia law that the Congress of Deputies approved three months earlier came into force, the family submitted the request for Eskarne to be able to avail himself of this right.

Thus began a procedure that culminated just 30 days later: “Everything has been very fast, without any complications, and it ran in a particularly correct and natural way,” explains the son in a telephone conversation.

"She needed to die"

That June 25, they submitted the request to the family doctor, who turned out to be a conscientious objector, but “the situation was immediately resolved because that same day Osakidetza [Basque Health Service] put the case in the hands of a doctor who was willing to accompany us During all the process". The administrative and health machinery started immediately, with a diligence that surprised the relatives. All the steps were carried out, several medical reports through, until the guarantee and evaluation commission gave its final approval: “Our case was very clear, it did not raise any doubts to the doctors. She was not conscious, she had not been a person for several years and she needed to die ”, the son says resigned.

The moment the family was waiting for arrived. On July 23, the team of doctors and nurses assisted the patient at the time of administering the substance that caused her death. This relative tells that this trance is “emotionally very powerful”: “It is cold but at the same time very human, a very dignified ending. It was not violent at all. It was in the bedroom, with all the loved ones by his side. It is not easy to die like this, but she was no longer in this life and she did not want to be ”.

The family is pleasantly surprised by "the human quality and the exquisite treatment received" by Osakidetza and the health professionals who have treated them.

“All the doctors and nurses had a very close attention, with great sensitivity and humanity.

They were especially careful at the time of death, when they had to explain to us very precisely what the ending was going to be like.

We feel very wrapped up ”, says the relative.

Eskarne's son celebrates that euthanasia has been regulated in Spain and, given the experience he has lived in the first person, he considers that "it was worth it".

Furthermore, he adds that he would "do it too" if he were in the same situation as his mother.