Abstract
What do we mean when we talk about “proportioned care”? We know that the medical care needs to be proportionate, but proportionate to what?
This chapter analyzes the proportionality of healthcare in the way it has developed in our culture. On the one hand, it is made possible by the ever developing capacity of objective science to measure the efficacy of healthcare, measuring them to a standard, and on the other hand, by the capacity to assist and to allow to emerge the intentionality and the expectations of the ones receiving healthcare in an empathic manner, by commensurating the healthcare provided.
The work indicates that there could be another kind of proportionality: the human one characterized by identifying what is good in what is good for everyone and for each one at the same time.
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- 1.
For now, we must resign ourselves to what has always happened: the winning force has been called truth, justice, and law. For this reason, it is pathetic to invoke an absolute good. Nowadays, the dominant culture is not capable to resolve these problems. They are resolved in a practical, political manner.
- 2.
The Englaro case is, in some respects, similar to the Terri Schiavo case, only with a less conflictual family. Eluana lived in a vegetative state for 17 years after a car accident, until her death caused by the interruption of the artificial ventilation. Eluana’s father, Beppino Englaro, had tried for 17 years to get recognized to the Italian law the right of his daughter not to be kept alive artificially and therefore to be allowed to die, arguing that Eluana would not have wanted to live in a vegetative state. Since there was no biological testament, Beppino Englaro made himself guarantor of the will of his daughter together with his wife and he sought to corroborate this position through the testimonies of the friends of his daughter.
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Campione, F. (2015). The Humanization of Healthcare Treatments and Critical Choices. In: Callus, E., Quadri, E. (eds) Clinical Psychology and Congenital Heart Disease. Springer, Milano. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-5699-2_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-88-470-5699-2_2
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