On care maintenance
(at purpose of the Andrea Lago case)
Antonio Pardo.
Medicine and Bioethics Education Unit.
La Razón, 6 October 2015, p. 37.
From press reports, the patient suffers from a neurological disease, is currently disabled, and is fed through a tube directly into her stomach (gastrostomy); I gather that she does not suffer from any other subject problems.
Medical ethics has simple rules for determining whether a measure should be implemented: it should if it is useful for something and does not cause disproportionate discomfort or harm; it is optional if it is not useful but does not cause particular discomfort, or if it is useful and causes much discomfort but the patient admits it; and something useless that causes disproportionate discomfort should not even be recommended.
If the case is as described at the beginning, gastrostomy feeding and cleaning and mobilisation of the patient are useful interventions that do not cause particular discomfort or pain to the patient and should therefore be maintained.
It would be a different matter if a complication were to force another subject of more drastic measures, which would entail an unpleasant or unpleasant status : these other measures (such as the application of a respirator) would be applicable elective subject and, if they were already in place, it might be reasonable to withdraw them, even if this would mean the death of the patient.
In any case, the comments I have read point to food as a treatment, when it is a basic need of every human being. Only if the food itself is intolerable could it be discontinued.