Martina Oppelli, a 50-year-old from Trieste who had been suffering from multiple sclerosis for over 20 years, died this morning in Switzerland, where she had access to physician-assisted suicide. The Luca Coscioni Association announced this. On June 4, she had received her third refusal from the University Health Authority of Giuliano Isonzo regarding the verification of her eligibility for physician-assisted suicide. She was accompanied to Switzerland by Claudio Stellari and Matteo D'Angelo, members of Soccorso Civile, an association for civil disobedience at the end of life whose legal representative is Marco Cappato.
According to the health authority, the Luca Coscioni Association reports, Oppelli "was not receiving any life-sustaining treatment, despite her complete dependence on the continuous care of caregivers and medical supplies (medications, a catheter, and a cough machine)." For this reason, on June 19, assisted by a legal team coordinated by Filomena Gallo, lawyer and national secretary of the Luca Coscioni Association, she filed an appeal against the denial, accompanied by a formal warning and formal notice to the health authority. A new evaluation process was then initiated by the medical commission, but, the association explains, "Martina Oppelli decided to go to Switzerland to access assisted dying because she could not wait any longer for a response: the suffering was in no way tolerable ." Thirty-one other people provided logistical and financial assistance to Oppelli; their names, the Luca Coscioni Association concludes, will be released.
"Dear parliamentarians and fellow citizens," Oppelli said in a video recorded in Switzerland before her death, "I don't know if you remember me; I'm Martina Oppelli. Over a year ago, I appealed to all of you to enact and approve a law, a sensible law that regulates the end of life, that allows all people, the sick, the elderly, to have a dignified end of life. But no matter, sooner or later we all have to face the end of our earthly lives. Yes, this appeal has fallen on deaf ears."
"Two years ago now," he recalls, "I appealed the Cappato ruling to access so-called assisted suicide at my regional health authority. ." But why, he asks, "why do we have to go abroad, why do we have to pay, even undertake absurd journeys? I made a very long journey," "it was truly a herculean effort, but I did it to have a dignified end to my suffering. ."
