Diritto di lasciarsi morire dignitosamente e informazione adeguata. La tutela dello straniero nel fine vita.

Italian Statutory Law No. 219 of 2017 opened up a new legal frontier in the healthcare sector. By reinterpreting the doctor-patient relationship in a liberal key, it established the principle of therapeutic self-determination. The positive aspects of this statutory law, which places the protection of human dignity at the center and stands in opposition to the culture of therapeutic obstinacy and paternalism in healthcare, do not erase its negative aspects, which, in the area of advance treatment directives (DAT), extend to the procedure for forming one’s will. The regulatory silence impinges on the sanctions available in the absence, or inadequate updating, of the information provided. The need to protect the fundamental values of the human person requires preventive protection, to be implemented not only downstream, in the executive phase of the therapeutic choice, but above all upstream, in its formative phase, especially when the asymmetry in the doctor-patient relationship is determined by an imbalance that is not only informational, but also linguistic and cultural. In this case, enhanced protection appears essential, involving careful monitoring of the adequacy of information and the testator’s actual understanding of the healthcare treatments that may be provided at the end of life and the possible consequences of consenting to or refusing life-sustaining treatment. In this context, it would be useful to assess the advisability, through anthropological listening to the patient, of providing specific information and assistance tools which, in light of the socio-cultural experience of the foreign testator, assist them in the assessment process, so that the exercise of the right to a dignified death is the result of a responsible, weighed up, and fair choice.