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February 19 – March 4, 2015 Springing to life
Spotlight on...
Health advice
Destination guide
Blooming plants
Anna Heppner
Exercise equals happiness
Canary Islands general info
Page 8
Page 16
Pages 28 & 29
Pages 32-37
Positive crime rates Last year saw every Spanish province except Navarre enjoy an overall drop in crime rates. According to statistics recently published by the Spanish Interior Ministry, at 44.8 offences per 1,000 inhabitants, Spain has one of the lowest crime rates in the European Union. It wasn’t all good news, however, as just over two million criminal offences were committed nationally: though, whilst murders rose slightly to 322, the number of violent crimes decreased by 17 per cent and there were 3.6 per cent less burglaries overall. The Canary Islands logged generally lower crime figures as well, but, unfortunately, burglaries and other thefts have been steadily increasing since the start of the financial crisis. The towns with the highest recorded offences on the island of Tenerife were Santa Cruz, La Laguna and Arona, though approximately 7,000 more criminal offences were committed in the province of Gran Canaria than that of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. n
Not euthanasia By Karl McLaughlin The new Canarian legislation on end-of-life health care decisions, known popularly as the Dying with Dignity Law, continues to trigger controversy ahead of its official entry into force in late April. Political, ethical and even medical debate remains heated as to exactly what the new legislation, formally approved by the regional Parliament at the end of January, actually means in practical terms, though officials are keen to stress that it is definitely not a law on euthanasia. Sources consulted by Island Connections have explained that neither euthanasia – in strictly legal terms, an act that causes death – nor assisted suicide are regulated by the new provisions and both therefore continue to
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be dealt with exclusively by Spain’s Penal Code, which regional governments are not empowered to amend in any way. Rather, the purpose of the law is to regulate a variety of clinical possibilities for alleviating the suffering of terminal patients, and
aims to guarantee a dignified death for them on their own terms: Patients are now legally entitled to receive full and truthful information on their health and prognosis to enable them to make their own treatment decisions. It has emerged that one of
the reasons why legislators felt it necessary to clarify the rights of palliative care patients, and the duties and responsibilities of the doctors treating them, was to resolve the conflict that can arise between the views of medical staff and the wishes of their wards.
Now, it’s stated clearly that patients’ wishes concerning their care and treatments shall be respected in full, and doctors shall refrain from engaging in so-called ‘therapeutic obstinacy’ or from imposing their own personal, moral, religious or philosophical opinions. Canarian lawmakers have also been at pains in the preamble to the law to stress that palliative sedation and refusal of treatment cannot be viewed as forms of euthanasia and merely seek to “alleviate or avoid unnecessary suffering”. Conscious of the possible confusion the term creates in today’s society, they recall that the literal meaning of the Greek word euthanasia is “a good death”, which is precisely the aim pursued by the law. Continued on Page 2