The Right to Die with Dignity-Catalunya association has started today a campaign to promote the Advance Directives Document (DVA) with two videos starring the actors Carme Elias and Josep Maria Pou.
Coinciding with World Alzheimer’s Day, the entity considers that there is a great lack of knowledge of the DVA, the document through which a person, of legal age, with sufficient capacity and freely, records the instructions on treatments, medical care and the care you wish to receive or reject when you find yourself in circumstances that do not allow you to express your will.
Cristina Vallès, president of DMD Catalunya, has called on the Department of Health and the Parliament groups to promote the DVA, informing citizens and professionals, and to simplify the process for granting it.
The procedure for processing the DVA presents great disparities between the autonomies, circumstances that cause significant differences regarding the use of this alternative. Thus, in Catalonia 14.15% of the population has formalized the DVA, while in Navarra it rises to 22.36%.
In Catalonia, the declaration of advance directives can be formalized before a notary or before three witnesses of legal age and with full capacity to act. DMD calls for introducing a third assumption: health professionals. To do this, it is necessary to modify article 8 of Law 21/2000, adding: “The possibility of granting the DVA to health professionals is also recognized, so that these professionals will also be able to fulfill the function of witnessing.”
DMD hopes that the proposal to modify the law will be presented soon, in order to expedite the processing of the DVA, taking into account that it is normally the health workers of outpatient hospitals and social health clinics who inform patients about this document, so “ Recognition of the role of witnessing to health professionals will mean nothing more than completing, through logical continuity, the function they already provide today.”
Regarding the requirements of the autonomous communities regarding the advance directive document, Aragón and the Valencian Community allow it to be processed with only two witnesses. Andalusia, Cantabria, Castilla-La Mancha, the Valencian Community, Galicia, Madrid, Asturias and Navarra have foreseen that the DVA can be granted to the staff of health centers.
For Cristina Vallès, the DVA “is like a basic instrument to calmly face an Alzheimer’s diagnosis.” Actress Carme Elias announced last year that she is affected. Also participating in the promotional campaign is the actor Josep Maria Pou, who is currently performing The Father, an original by Florian Zeller that addresses the issue of Alzheimer’s and the confusion it causes both in the person and in those around him.
