We are volunteers who take turns day after day with people at the end of life in a palliative care process.
Our mission is to accompany the sick by listening to them, supporting them, with respect, kindness and humanity.
Coming from civil society, with diverse backgrounds, we are women and men of all ages, of all sensitivities, driven by the conviction that a fraternal society cannot leave the most vulnerable by the wayside, particularly those who are at the end of their lives and most often undermined by the anxiety of an approaching end.
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We work in various palliative care settings, in institutions and at home, in close collaboration with the nursing staff.
Our goal is to bring our stone to this society that we want to be supportive and warm.
Until their last breath, patients can count on our discreet and attentive presence, sometimes even silent, reminding them that they are part of the world of the living, with all their dignity.
Once taken care of by a specialized team, whether in an establishment or at home, patients who often come out exhausted from long therapeutic journeys can settle down and calm down, in a time frame where every moment has value for the patients. , for their loved ones and caregivers.
These moments allow a re-reading of life, and a mutual listening allowing to deepen the present moment.
We also observe that even if they had thought about it, very few still express a desire to end it after 2 or 3 days in palliative care.
Indeed their sufferings are relieved and they understood that they would be accompanied until the end.
In a climate of trust between all the actors, the caregivers in the first row, a human environment is offered to them, as well as to their loved ones.
Thanks to this exceptional framework of medical competence and humanity, they can leave most often appeased and surrounded.
This is the vocation of palliative care, which it has fulfilled better and better for more than 30 years.
We also witness day after day that the provisions of the Claeys-Leonetti law of 2016 give healthcare teams the legal framework to deliberate collectively on each individual situation, regardless of its complexity.
Including in very rare cases where the patient's suffering can only be relieved by deep and continuous sedation until death.
While we are aware of the way that remains to be done so that all those who wish to can benefit from palliative care, we would like to express our deep concern at the prospect of euthanasia breaking into this environment entirely devoted to the moments that remain live.
Collective platform
While we are aware of the way that remains to be done so that all those who wish to can benefit from palliative care, we would like to express our deep concern at the prospect of euthanasia breaking into this environment entirely devoted to the moments that remain live.
We therefore alert political decision-makers to the risks that such an upheaval would pose to the quality of palliative care and to the motivation of all its actors.
Irreversible and growing risks, judging by what our foreign colleagues tell us.
We do not pass judgment on those who, in the name of their freedom, want their lives to be shortened, insofar as their affirmation of autonomy is not exercised within the framework of palliative care.
The latter have in fact no vocation to hasten the death of patients.
Because if their choice is respectable, we consider that it must in turn be respectful of those who do not do the same, whether on the side of the sick and their relatives, or caregivers, committed to their patients by a promise of non-surrender.
What would be experienced by some as an additional freedom, would result sooner or later for the majority in a questioning leading to the feeling of being a burden, thus putting heavy pressure on them.
This would particularly concern those who are psychologically fragile, especially if they are in a precarious social or economic situation.
But our French society is committed to supporting the most vulnerable, never to make them feel that they are too many.
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Given the seriousness of the issues, we launch an urgent appeal to all political leaders to take into account the extreme vulnerability of end-of-life patients and their families, the vocation of caregivers entirely focused on relief and accompaniment until the last moment.
We urge them to make the necessary commitments so that palliative care is accessible to everyone and everywhere in France as soon as possible.
Signatories: members of the Ile-de-France collective of volunteer palliative care companions: Florence Deguet and Etienne Hubert (AIM Jeanne Garnier), Guy Bisson (ASP 91), Evelyne Vignon (JALMAV Paris), Martine Schaming (JALMAV Val-d'Oise), Marie Quinquis (Shore).
