The Attitude of Nurses towards Euthanasia at the Department of Anesthesiology and Resuscitation Care and Intensive Care Unit

ABSTRACT Does a person suffering from an incurable disease causing him terrible pain have the right to end his/her life? Does a physician have the right to fulfill such patient{\crq}s wish and help him to commit suicide? These questions are the basic ones concerning euthanasia. Euthanasia is nowadays a frequently discussed issue not only for medical personnel but also for wide public. It is considered a problem of human rights and it includes moral, religious, medical, nursing and also cultural and legal aspects. The core of the problem of euthanasia is ethical since human life is at stake. Principal arguments to justify euthanasia claim an endeavour to relieve mercifully a person from suffering, to propel human rights, especially the right to respect personal autonomy and to release an individual from an intolerably miserable quality of life. The issue of euthanasia is very problematic. In medical ethics the real right to die is the right to let die and is related to the right of a person to die with an appropriate care while dying. Which means that people should be allowed to die when they are dying and when it is in their own interest to die. They should be provided with all necessary comfort and their dying should not be prolonged. As for euthanasia, there is no right to be put to death by another person neither is there a right to be put to death on demand. The aim of the paper was to find out what attitude adopt nurses working at ARO (critical care unit) and JIP (intensive care unit) and how their attitudes differ from those of nurses working at standard departments. The research has shown that this attitude does not differ significantly. Both groups of nurses opted for legalization of euthanasia in the Czech Republic. Even though euthanasia is an issue relatively discussed in media, both groups agreed that the issue is not dealt with sufficiently and they did not have the opportunity to take part in a seminar or congress where the issue would be discussed. They have the same opinion even in the aspect whether a person has the right to decide on his death and whether they have already been asked by a patient for euthanasia or to end his/her life. In both cases they gave a positive answer. Two hypotheses were set for the research. Hypothesis 1- Nurses working at ARO (CCU) and JIP (ICU) agree with legalization of euthanasia in the Czech Republic, hypothesis 2 {--} Nurses working at ARO (CCU) and JIP (ICU) prefer legalization of euthanasia in the Czech Republic compared with nurses working at standard departments. Both hypotheses were confirmed. The results of the paper serve to better understand the attitude of nurses working with critically ill people to euthanasia. The work of a nurse at departments ARO (CCU) and JIP (ICU) is very psychically and physically difficult and the issue of euthanasia is closely connected to it