Current questions concerning the reform of the health service, the reduction of late abortions, better ways of patient management and assistance to the terminally ill were the main issues discussed at the meeting held in Bonn on 25 October, with the participation of representatives of the German Federal Order of Physicians, the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK) and the Council of the Evangelical Church of Germany (EKD). The delegations, led respectively by the president of the Order of Physicians, Jörg-Dietrich Hoppe, the president of the DBK, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, and the president of the EKD, Bishop Wolfgang Huber, expressed their “concern about the reforms currently being planned in the field of healthcare, especially in consideration of the relationship of trust between medics and patients”, says a joint statement issued after the meeting. The delegates unanimously declared the need to improve “the protection of unborn human life” and find provisions that “would help to reduce in particular the number of late abortions. To this end an important role must be played by assistance to the life of mothers with children with disabilities”. The statement also underlines the need to provide a “dignified accompaniment to death” for the terminally ill, implement “hospice structures” and develop the resources of “palliative medicine”. All the delegates reaffirmed their rejection of euthanasia: “the collaborations of medics in suicide is in conflict with medical ethics and is to be rejected”. The statement also underlines the rejection of “any kind of public tolerance or facilitation of institutionalised assistance in suicide”.
