While debates are intensifying around the end of life, also called the right to die, Mario Barravecchia, former candidate for season 1 of the TF1 telecrochet “Star Academy”, in 2001, has spoken a lot in recent days about the reasons which pushed him to agree to help his father, suffering from Charcot's disease, to pass away.
Guest of Jean-Marc Morandini on the set of “Morandini Live”, the flagship program of CNews, in particular, he spoke at length.
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His testimony is edifying.
The young man first wanted to recall what it is like to suffer from Charcot disease, an incurable neurodegenerative disease to date, which is characterized by a progressive loss of all functions, both non-vital and vital. , among other respiratory issues.
“My dad had a serious form of this disease since he passed away in six months.
And in the last few weeks, he asked me very often to let him go,”
he describes.
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He then explains that
“it is a very delicate question, a dilemma, to respond favorably or not to one's own father who asks to die because he refuses to waste away, to suffer, to become a vegetable.
(...) I should have respected my father's word a little earlier and thus spared him a lot of suffering
.
To the journalist who then asked him what state his dad was in during the last days, he replied:
“The last two or three days he was in a sort of coma.
The doctors confirmed to us that there was no longer any possible outcome
.
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Further on, he specifies that despite the tragedy he experienced:
“The right to die, at least in the case of Charcot's disease, must not erase the right to live.
We must not fall into the trap of condemning a patient who is suffering from a serious but curable illness.
When a patient suffers from an incurable illness, I think that we must give him the choice to die peacefully, with the agreement of the medical team
.
A testimonial book
Of Belgian nationality, the father of the man who is now a real estate agent in Burgundy was hospitalized in Belgium and wanted his son to be the one to give him the injection that would kill him.
Mario also says why he refused.
“I had the impression that I was going to kill my father and obviously it was an atrocious gesture, too difficult, but my father always told me that if he had to breathe with a machine, I would have to unplug it.
I told the family doctor I was going to do it.
I unplugged the respirator.
And gave him the injection.”
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The following question from Jean-Marc Morandini on Mario's feelings in the minutes following the death of his father.
“It was a liberation
,” he said. “
Because a mind that functions in a body that no longer functions and will never function again is the greatest suffering
. ”
And the presenter asks again:
“Do we feel like we’re doing the right thing”
?
“I did it quite quickly because I knew there was nothing more to do (...). I thought about my childhood, about everything I did with my father, about everything I owe him
.
He recalls in passing, the release in bookstores last year of his book of tribute and testimony,
My father, my battle
, prefaced by Nikos Aliagas.