by NexDev | December 21, 2018 | News
On November 28, 2018 in France, the overwhelming film “Save or Perish” was released. The film progressively unveils a fireman’s challenge, and that of his wife, after he has been burned and disfigured in a horrible accident.
In the beginning Franck is portrayed as being a completely dedicated, professional and proud firefighter, studiously preparing to pass the difficult exams to become a fire chief. Pierre Niney plays the role of Franck, and Anaïs Demoustier plays the role of his wife, who has just given birth to two little twin girls.
When speaking about her husband, Cecile affirms that his job has helped him forge his character, how he feels proud and happy to serve others and save lives, either by extinguishing fires, rescuing the homeless on the sidewalk from hypothermia, or sometimes confronting the aftermath of desperate suicide cases, collecting cadavers’ body parts from under the subway.
First and foremost this film is a tribute to firemen, to their tough daily job of assisting vulnerable individuals and to how they perform these tasks with courtesy and respect.
The whole family suffers a traumatic experience when Franck proceeds to rescue two of his colleagues. He also becomes trapped in the burning building, and although he miraculously survives, he is badly burned and his face is horribly mutilated by the fire.
After 6 months of coma, Franck painfully re-awakens, filled with revolt and anger. He feels like a monster that no longer deserves his wife, and even contemplates putting an end to his life. This period is agonizing for Cecile: she goes through arduous phases of rejection and she blames herself for not being able to love him anymore. They decide to separate for a while and Cecile returns home to live with her parents.
In some scenes we become acquainted with the hospital staff, with their admirable dedication and sensitivity. Nathalie, a nurse full of attention, affirms to Franck that he is resourceful enough to pull himself out of the situation. The film depicts a beautiful and trusting relationship between the caregiver and the patient, so precious for a man who is extremely wounded, at a time in his life when he is experiencing inordinate suffering.
However, the turning point in the film doesn’t occur until Frank is literally hanging from his balcony, intending to put an end to his life. At this dramatic moment while he’s still on the balcony rail, he envisions his own dead corpse, a fireman’s body, destroyed and shattered below on the sidewalk. This is the moment when something clicks inside him. He realizes that the meaning of his life is to be with his wife and daughter; that he was not put on earth to perish, but rather to serve.
Until now, he had closed himself up in the role of a desperate victim. Suddenly he realizes that his family is counting on him and waiting for him. At this point he leans not towards the abyss below, but towards life.
Following 24 painful operations, he also decides to stop chasing his former self, to accept himself as he is now, with his face scarred by the indelible burns. And for the first time, he kisses his two twin daughters.
He decides to “win his wife back” and he goes to a school party disguised as a clown to surprise his wife and children; and then tell them how much he loves them.
The film depicts a couple who must become reacquainted with each other, and learn how to truly love each other. Cecile previously loved Franck as a magnificent fireman, and presently she accepts his vulnerability. However she can only do this once he himself has accepted his own vulnerability, and the fact that he is no longer the fireman he was before.
This is a film depicting a very honest and profound look at humanity, which invites us to examine our own vulnerability, to take the road we all need to follow, to accept ourselves and to love ourselves just the way we are, with our limitations and our imperfections. These are the inherent requirements to genuinely love others and accept to be loved.
Contributed by Didier Berge
by NexDev | December 21, 2018 | Medically Assisted Procreation
On December 19, 2018, the House of Deputies in India, the Lok Sabha, adopted a bill prohibiting surrogacy.
In order to protect women from being exploited, the draft law on “commercial” surrogacy has a provision for a jail term of up to 10 years.
Since 2002, when India authorized surrogacy, repeated national scandals reported in the world press have led authorities to take protective measures against surrogate factories that exploit the poor, and sponsors who abandon babies who do not meet their criteria. The bill, introduced by the Indian Health Minister JP Nadda, was passed in August 2016 by Narendra Modi’s nationalist government and then “it was referred to the parliamentary standing committee on Health and Family Welfare in January 2017″.
India thus joins other countries such as Thailand, Cambodia and Nepal that have significantly curtailed the practice of surrogacy.
Surrogacy will be supervised and only available to Indian couples with medically proven infertility, who have been married for at least 5 years. This constitutes a first blow. In New Delhi, the Director of the Center for Social Research Ranjana Kumari explains that until now, due to the easy access to surrogacy, adoption had not attracted many people. She declares: “this may possibly boost the dismal adoption figures in India.”
Caroline Roux, Alliance VITA’s Assistant General Delegate and member of the collective group initiative “No Maternity Traffic” speaks out: “I’m concerned about the victims of surrogacy, whether they are women or children. It is a relief to see the Indian authorities take measures to drastically restrict surrogacy and its inhumane financial profits. India’s ban on “commercial” surrogacy is a very important step and it helps promote the global awareness that surrogacy is inconsistent with Human Rights. Nonetheless India has not yet gone the entire way to forbid all forms of surrogacy on an international level. We look forward to seeing the same determination from the United States. With its ultra-liberalism, the US is the major provider of surrogates for commercial agencies that carry out the procreation business with impunity.”
by NexDev | December 14, 2018 | Medically Assisted Procreation, News
A decision has just been rendered by the Administrative Court of Appeal in Bordeaux, France on the delicate issue of paying compensation for the distress caused by the birth of a child whose disability was not detected during pregnancy due to a medical error.
Following in vitro fertilization, Mr. and Mrs. R gave birth to 3 male triplets in 1999. Two of the triplets who are severely disabled were diagnosed with Becker muscular dystrophy in 2005.
Mr. and Mrs. R. filed a claim in their own name and on behalf of the healthy sibling for compensation for damages suffered due to two disabled boys, citing hospital medical errors for not detecting the pathology before birth.
By judgment of 4 December 2018, the Bordeaux Administrative Court of Appeal held that the hospital center that had followed Mrs. R … ‘s pregnancy had committed a serious error which deprived the parents of the possibility of performing a prenatal diagnosis, considering their family history, and therefore a chance to give birth to children whithout a genetic defect, either by giving up the pregnancy, or by benefiting from a prenatal diagnosis with selective interruption of pregnancy.
On December 4, 2018, the Administrative Court of Appeal in Bordeaux ruled that the medical center had committed a serious error during Mrs. R’s pregnancy. The parents were not offered the opportunity to have prenatal diagnosis performed, considering their family antecedents, and therefore were not given the chance to have children without the genetic defect, either by abandoning the pregnancy, or by performing a prenatal diagnosis and a selective abortion.
The Court therefore condemned the hospital to pay Mr. and Mrs. R. 30,200 € each in compensation for personal injury, in addition to 10,000 € to their son F. for moral compensation and the difficult living conditions due to his brothers’ disability.
In so doing, the administrative court broadened the scope of Article L.114-5 paragraph 3 of the Legal Code for society and families, to include the sibling, when it was previously only applicable to the parents.
Although a child with severe disabilities is undeniably a source of hardship and even suffering, not only for his parents but also for the whole family, is it legitimate to broaden the scope of the law?
Since March 4, 2002, the French law known as “anti-Perruche” rightly asserts that compensation for special burdens due to disability is a matter of national solidarity, specifying : “No one can claim an injustice just for the fact of having been born.” However, the law recognizes that the parents of a disabled child have a special right to compensation for “moral damage and disruption in their living conditions“, on behalf of the doctors who didn’t offer them an opportunity to end the pregnancy. But until now, other family members, including siblings, were not included in the compensation rights.
To give a disabled child the painful and brutal message that he should not have been born is already distressful. But to affirm that siblings also have a “right to compensation”, when they were not given a choice whether to accept their sibling or not, constitutes a questionable interpretation that could stigmatize even more disabled people.
The French State Council of State may have to decide whether this judgment rendered on December 4, 2018 should be appealed.
by NexDev | December 14, 2018 | News
An unprecedented study published in the British Journal of Medical Ethics, denounces the misuse and easy access to what is euphemistically called “Medical Aid in Dying” (MAiD), which in reality implies resorting to euthanasia and assisted suicide in Quebec. The authors claim that this is sometimes applied abruptly with little or no effort to mitigate or relieve the patient’s suffering through non-lethal medical means. Thus, some patients requested MAiD without being informed about palliative care options for end-of-life care.
Between December 2015 and June 2017, researchers Lori Seller and Véronique Fraser from the McGill University Health Center, and Marie-Eve Bouthillier, from Laval, evaluated 80 cases of patients requesting MAiD in two Quebec hospitals and one long-term care center. The authors of this research study explain that “When MAiD was legalized in Quebec three years ago, the clinical guidelines recommended that MAiD be approached as a last resort when other care options are insufficient.”
The researchers revealed several paradoxical situations. One in five patients had not signed any advance directives, that is for instance do-not-resuscitate orders for their end-of-life conditions. The bioethicist, Lori Seller, believes that “If palliative care was initiated sooner, patients may benefit from it, but the issue remains as to whether there would be less recourse to MAiD. We raise the question without having an answer for now. It would require further research.
These findings have appeared at a time when the number of euthanasia cases has soared. According to a report recently submitted to the Canadian National Assembly by the Commission for the End-of-Life, there were 845 cases between 2017 and 2018 compared to 638 cases the previous year. The report revealed that in the past 3 years, the legal requirements were not respected in 5% of the cases, and several cases were also cited where MAiD requests were filed even before proposing palliative care.
Physicians appear to be responsible since, in 29 cases, the physician is not impartial in his explanations to the patient about the criteria for requesting MAiD. In 9 other cases, the physician who did not practice MAiD was not sufficiently careful in verifying the patient’s health status, pain level, and adequately informed consent. Five patients were not suffering from an incurable disease, in two other patients were not at the end-of-life. For 17 other cases, the stipulated guidelines for access to MAiD were not followed. The commission thus questions the lack of clear communication regarding end-of-life care.
Last May, the College of Physicians warned that patients would turn to euthanasia due to inadequate palliative care services. Palliative care physicians have renewed their urgent appeal to upgrade palliative care which is under developed in Québec.
Alliance VITA has repeatedly emphasized the inherent dilemma of claiming to develop palliative care, while simultaneously legalizing euthanasia and terminal sedation. This inevitably leads to conflicts since these two approaches are contradictory. Palliative care is incompatible with euthanasia. The warning signs observed in Quebec demonstrate that these procedures lead to a dead end.
by NexDev | December 7, 2018 | Fertility and pregnancy
In Brazil, the first baby was born following a uterus transplant from a deceased donor, according to an article published last Wednesday in the British medical journal the Lancet.
Born one year after the transplant, and still healthy at the age of 7 months, this is the first uterine transplant from a deceased donor to result in a live birth.
The first childbirth following uterine transplantation from living donors occurred in Sweden in 2013. In total, there have been 39 transplant procedures of this kind in the world, resulting in 11 live births so far. In France, the first uterine transplant is scheduled for 2019.
The operation took place in September 2016. The recipient of the uterus was a 32-year old woman born without a uterus. This is known as the Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome. The 45 year-old-woman donated multiple organs when she died from a stroke. The uterus was removed from the donor and then transplanted into the recipient in surgery lasting 10.5 hours, then followed by arduous immunosuppressive treatment to prevent transplant rejection.
In reality, these complex and risky operations do not restore fertility. In vitro fertilization was performed and it was not specified whether the oocytes were those of the woman or those of a donor…
