The WeCare Chair at UIC Barcelona brought together international experts at the meeting held on 24 February with the main aim of reflecting on the final stage of life, the importance of multidimensional treatment for patients and their families and the fundamental role palliative care plays in reducing their severe suffering.

Dr Eduardo Bruera, Head of Palliative Care at the MD Anderson Cancer Center (Houston) and Professor and F. T. McGraw Chair in Cancer Treatment at the University of Texas (USA) opened the session, which was attended by more than 1.000 participants. The renowned palliative care physician stressed the importance of “changing the structures and processes in health centres and institutions to encourage the creation of palliative care units where specialised professionals can care for and accompany patients and their families”. “Faculties of Medicine also have an important role to play in terms of training future physicians in palliative care and thus making this specialist area that is so unknown in society and so needed more visible,” added Dr Bruera.

Dr Cristina Monforte, co-director of the WeCare Chair, highlighted the need to proactively assess the potential wish to hasten death that may occur in some patients, even if they do not express it. It is only thus that it becomes possible to understand and make potential areas of suffering emerge that would otherwise not be detected. “This knowledge is fundamental because, as numerous studies carried out as part of the Chair show, the greatest fear of patients with advanced diseases or who are at the end of their life is to suffer. “It is essential to assess the wish to hasten death and suffering in order to design tailored treatment plans to alleviate that suffering in the patient and their family,” explained Dr Monforte.

Throughout the session, the importance of establishing a close and free-flowing relationship between the patient, family, and medical team was also stressed, with the aim of planning early decision-making in advance. “To be able to decide in advance what kind of treatments the patient wants to receive when the disease progresses, to communicate their wishes and concerns, to give the patient greater peace and control is to better deal with their present and future,” explained Dr Christian Villavicencio, Medical Director of Caredoctors and lecturer at the UIC Barcelona Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences. Other aspects addressed during the seminar were “the need to enhance advanced palliative care for complex cases in which a person expresses a wish to hasten his or her death. Or palliative sedation so as not to artificially prolong the lives of people when the symptoms of or suffering caused by their disease do not respond to treatment,” as Dr Jaime Boceta, a palliative care physician, demonstrated. He is president of the Ethics Committee at Seville Sur and a member of the Spanish Pain Society.

Finally, Dr Rogelio Altisent analysed a proposal for an organic law regulating euthanasia from the perspective of the report written by the Spanish Bioethics Committee, of which he is Vice-President, and he focused on its ethical aspects. Among other aspects, he reflected on the importance of society making a decision about the anthropological model it wants to follow. “There are two different models that do not allow a neutral position: One which defends life and protects it as a primary asset because it allows for human realisation in all spheres, or one which protects the individual’s right to exercise autonomy without limitation,” said Dr Altisent.

Look at the whole virtual seminar