End-of-life in Sardinia: almost a year after the green light, the Commissions are still missing: they should have been appointed within 15 days.
Six out of eight local health authorities lack the evaluation bodies necessary to implement the measure, which therefore remains only on paper: the ordeal of an 84-year-old woman from Sindia suffering from multiple sclerosis.(Handle)
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The law on end-of-life care was approved in Sardinia almost a year ago, on September 18, 2025, but it hasn't been implemented. The local health authorities (ASLs) have not established permanent multidisciplinary commissions, the bodies responsible for evaluating requests .
The Tonino Pascali-Sardegna Radicale association denounces this, speaking of a "wall of silence and institutional omissions" that effectively renders the legislation on assisted suicide inapplicable, which has also been challenged by the Government.
Sardinia was the second region, after Tuscany, to adopt a law on end-of-life care. Article 3 of the law stipulates that, within 15 days of the measure's entry into force, the local health authorities (ASL) were required to establish committees composed of a palliative care physician, a neurologist, a psychiatrist, an anesthesiologist, and a nurse .
To date, 262 days after the deadline for establishing the Commissions, only the Local Health Authorities of Nuoro and Medio Campidano have been appointed. This is significantly behind the deadline set last October 3rd: Nuoro 201 days after the legal deadline, and Medio Campidano 146 days after the legal deadline. The local health authorities of Cagliari, Sassari, Gallura, Ogliastra, Oristano, and Sulcis are still in default, explains Laura Di Napoli, one of the association's coordinators.
"Administrative inertia that has direct and dramatic effects on people's lives," denounces Sardegna Radicale, citing the case of Vittoria Gammone, an 84-year-old woman from Sindia with multiple sclerosis . The woman submitted a request for access to physician-assisted suicide to the Nuoro Local Health Authority (ASL) on February 10, 2026. The Commission was supposed to meet within five days, according to the law, but had not yet been appointed . Thus, the woman had to wait months, trapped in a procedural limbo deemed "unacceptable," before the ASL made the appointment, which took place on April 22.
"We must respect the choices and suffering of others, avoiding imposing further bureaucratic obstacles," denounces association coordinator Valentina Campus. " It is intolerable that a breakthrough in legal civilization should turn into an administrative ordeal . We demand transparency, we demand legality, and we urge the general directors of the delinquent local health authorities to urgently comply with their legal obligations , putting an end to this unacceptable suspension of the rule of law."
The Sardinian law has been challenged by the national government and is awaiting judgment by the Constitutional Court, which has already rejected some parts of the similar measure approved in Tuscany.
(Unioneonline/L)