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Survey on chaplaincy and quality of end of life  

Austria

Arbeitsgemeinschaft Evangelische Krankenhausseelsorge in Österreich
(Conference of Health Care Chaplaincy of the Protestant Church in Austria)

1. The legal regulations on end of life choices in Austria are:

End-of-life decision making is legal practice in Austria since June 2006.

The most common form is the "living will", to state the desires regarding life-sustaining or life-prolonging medical treatment related to specific circumstances that may arise near the end of life.

It is also possible to have a formal binding advance directive, which must be witnessed and signed by a medical practitioner and a lawyer and is to be renewed every five years.

By "advance directive“, or "living will", one can only state under which circumstances and which specific life-prolonging medical treatment one disapproves of and declines, so that it is not applied or has to be put off. Daily life practice actually shows, that physicians not only acknowledge the common form of a "living will", but also appreciate it as a help to them in end-of-life treatment of a patient.

My means of “living will” or “advance directive” it is not possible to choose specific life-sustaining treatment, as health care is obliged to do everything possible to enhance life and its quality, i.e. by means of palliative care.

Active termination of life, euthanasia and medically assisted suicide however is not legal in Austria.

  1. The Protestant Church in Austria (Evangelische Kirche A.u.H.B. in Österreich) has the view, that given legal practice of "advance directive“ and "living will“ respects and sufficiently protects the human dignity at the end of life. The Protestant Church of Austria disapproves medical assisted suicide or active termination of life and advocates the development and improvement of pain control, hospice and palliative care.

  2. Main tensions in general practice concern mainly situations in neonatology, but also situations where coma patients have no advance directive decision made beforehand, or where patients are not able to articulate their will against prolonging their life by life-sustaining treatment.

Klagenfurt, 30th November 2009

(Compiled by Mag. Friedrich van Scharrel)

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