The Archbishop of Cagliari and Secretary of the CEI Giuseppe Baturi takes a stand on the law on the end of life currently under discussion in the Regional Council. "More than the dignity of death, we must think about the dignity of life," said the prelate during a visit to the headquarters of the L'Unione Sarda group where he met with the publisher Sergio Zuncheddu, the vice-president of the group Franco Siddi and the director Emanuele Dessì.
"The end of life," Baturi emphasized, "must concern the care of the person to ensure that the person living that moment has all the useful care and assistance necessary for a total pain that is not only physical but also moral. We must ensure total care by taking on the complexity of such a delicate situation."
Palliative care is a fundamental tool already available, but Sardinia is behind on this front (among the last regions in Italy in access to palliative care): «On the island they must be applied more robustly through territorial plans», Baturi points out. «But we must also resort to pain therapy, ensure adequate structures such as hospices on the territory , involve the third sector through volunteers and forms of assistance that are not merely physical».
According to Monsignor Baturi, " taking care of the end of life does not mean affirming a right to death but ensuring conditions of dignity of living until the last moment . This must be the concern of all of us. We must think of a sort of alliance that we must make as a society, between public bodies and institutions, health care first and foremost, the third sector, the world of the church and culture, an alliance to accompany people in a dignified way in every moment of their existence".