Rome – An Italian medical board said Thursday that it will investigate a doctor for disconnecting the respirator of a paralyzed man who asked to be allowed to die.
Mario Riccio last week assisted in the death of Piergiorgio Welby, a 60-year-old writer with muscular dystrophy who was at the center of a right- to-die campaign in this predominantly Roman Catholic country.
Disciplinary action against Riccio could range from a warning to barring him from the medical profession, said officials at the board of physicians in the northern Italian city of Cremona, where the anesthesiologist is based.
Board president Mario Bianchi questioned Riccio until late Wednesday before announcing he would put the case to the board’s disciplinary commission.
Riccio said Bianchi was right to send the case to the commission, saying the high-profile nature of the case justified an investigation.
“If I were him, I would have done the same thing,” Riccio told The Associated Press by telephone.
Riccio and Welby’s family have said decision to disconnect the respirator conformed with a patient’s constitutional right to refuse treatment. Anti-euthanasia campaigners and some conservative politicians have described the death as murder.
Euthanasia is illegal in Italy, and the Vatican, which wields influence over the country’s political life, staunchly opposes the practice. Welby was mourned Sunday at a lay funeral in Rome after church officials denied him a religious ceremony.
