During a press conference held in Vienna on 24 March, Monsignor Klaus Küng, national delegate for the pastoral care of the family, presented the new “directives for Catholic health-care structures”. Also present at the press conference were the moral theologian Walter Schaupp and a number of directors and consultants of Austrian hospital structures. The Austrian Bishops’ Conference has drawn up a summary of the ethical characteristics that are essential to guarantee the principle of the patient’s self-determination and reliable medical assistance. The decisions of the bishops, taken in November 2005 during their autumn plenary in Rome, had been preceded by a wide-ranging process of consultation, in which the relevant documents of the Holy See, the Charter of the Brothers of Mercy, guidelines drawn up by other bishops’ conferences, and practical experiences and materials in this sector were examined. In the afternoon, the ethical standards summarised in the form of a set of directives were discussed by Bishop Küng as representative of the Austrian Bishops’ Conference and as an expert in this field.
