A man with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a serious degenerative disease, who is dying on Saturday and needs medical attention, has his last wish not granted.
Martial Larouche, 68, was diagnosed last September and is already having trouble speaking a few weeks later.
In particular, he risks suffocation, a scenario he doesn’t want to contemplate.
For this reason he asked for medical euthanasia. His appointment is scheduled for Saturday at 11 a.m. at Chicoutimi Hospital.
He is the father of three children and has seven grandchildren. Many are outside the region. Saturday was the best option for family.
If Mr. Larouche wanted to donate his brain and spinal cord to science to advance ALS research, that last wish could not come true.
The reasons given are unsatisfactory.
“We’re on the weekend, Saturday morning 11am and also the holidays are approaching, so they don’t have people available to come and do the brain removal,” explains his wife, Danielle Dufour, with a lump in her throat .by emotion.
“It’s incomprehensible. She would have told me there was a snowstorm, the park was closed… I would have understood. But we don’t live in Quebec, we didn’t get in touch early enough,” she laments.
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Small consolation, the man will be able to donate his lungs; two recipients are already waiting for you.
Transplant Québec did everything possible to collect the lungs on a Saturday to respect the last wish.
Brain harvesting for ALS research has to be done elsewhere and is more difficult.