Cecilia Heyder’s struggle: Court prohibits her from being transferred to her home before her euthanasia petition is resolved

The health situation of Cecilia Heyder, la Human Rights activist who He is currently waging a legal battle through a protection appeal in which he asks the authorities to allow him access to assisted death.

On December 12, she learned, unofficially, that her body is not carrying out the blood clotting process and that a doctor at the San José Hospital, taking into account that she is an evicted patient, would send her back to her home.

All this was reflected in an Order Not to Innovate presented by his lawyer Pablo Villar who requested the Santiago Appeals Court to prohibit his transfer, which was accepted by the Fifth Chamber of the appeal court in a divided resolution.

“The requested order not to innovate is granted, as the respondent must refrain from referring the appellant to her home during the processing of this appeal“Says the resolution to which you agreed The Third PM.

With a view to euthanasia being granted, Hayder interp filed a protection appeal against the San José Hospital, where she has been hospitalized for several months, and also against the Ministry of Health. In the libel he accuses that he lives under “the threat from the facility, assistance consisting of referring me to my home where I do not have the possibility of transfusion, which would imply a very painful and unworthy death and the omission of the defendants by not providing medical procedures to be able to achieve death in a painless and dignified way, given my current state of eviction ”.

Heyder is 54 years old, single, has two children and has become one of the icons of the Euthanasia Law that is being processed today in Congress. She has led a fight to access what she calls “a dignified death” after no medical treatment can stop its outcome after suffering from severe metastatic breast cancer, ovarian cancer, systemic lupus erythematosus, antiphospholipid syndrome, factor VII deficiency , arterial hypertension and anemia severe coagulopathy with no specific origin (oncological v / s rheumatological), in addition to chronic pain.

“I have reduced mobility, I can only move in a wheelchair, but since I have to be permanently connected to machines, it is not possible for me. At the moment I am admitted to the San José Hospital for septicemia due to a central peripheral catheter that I had in my arm. Medically I find myself hopeless, in current medicine there is no possibility of restoring my health condition to something that is close to normal. I no longer want more studies or undergo more invasive treatments. I no longer have venous lines, they have to put me central catheters, they have to put them in my groin. I want a dignified death, I don’t want to continue suffering, I have to be on morphine 24 hours a day right now and I don’t want to continue like this anymoreHeyder says in his appeal.

Lawyer Pablo Villar who represents the human rights activist points out that this decision of the capital’s appeal court is very relevant. “What it did was to prohibit the Hospital San José from referring Ms. Ceclilia Heyder to her home, since it is one of the two applications founding the protection appeal, together with the request for assisted death”.

The professional explains that initially the Court “had rejected this request, however We accompany new information, a Social Report, which allowed the ministers to understand that my client and her family do not have the technical capacity, structural and emotional to face the end of Doña Cecilia’s life at home in a dignified and painless way. It is necessary to understand that dignified death is a complex process that is not only related to the final moment, since the treatment that is given in the moments before the patient, Mrs. Cecilia in this specific case, is also important”.

In that sense, he says, the transfer that the Hospital doctors wanted “not only violates their fundamental guarantee of honor as well as their mental and physical integrity, but also violates the mental integrity of the family group that would have to face a delicate health situation for which they are not prepared, taking into consideration that today in the Hospital San José doña Cecilia is attended by a team of more than 10 people, including doctors, nurses and assistants ”.

“The resolution of the Court, in summary, implies a judicial advance regarding respect for the right to honor of Doña Cecilia, it is an advance regarding the right to a dignified death for which she has fought so much, however, regarding this right still lacks its express legal recognition, which is now trapped in Congress ”, warned Villar.

From the Minsal they have offered Heyder the transfer to a clinic or even to a single room in the San José Hospital, which she has rejected as he wants equal treatment and to win a court battle that allows him to access euthanasia.

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