EVALUATE MEDICAL DECISIONS USING ETHICAL CRITERIA

VATICAN CITY, NOV 17, 2000 (VIS) - Today in the Vatican's Synod Hall, John Paul II received in audience participants in the 15th international conference promoted by the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance to Health Care Workers, which is considering the theme: "Health and Society."

The Pope spoke of the importance of "recovering certain criteria of ethical and anthropological discernment that enable us to evaluate whether the choices made in medicine and health care are truly tailored to man, whom they must serve."

"Medicine which seeks principally to enrich its knowledge with a view to its own technological efficiency," he continued, "would betray its original ethos and open the door to harmful developments. Only by serving man's integral well-being, can medicine contribute to his progress and happiness and not become an instrument of manipulation and death."

The Holy Father referred to the necessity of recognizing ethical norms "at whose center lies the human being with his individual dignity. Respect for his right to be born, live and die with dignity constitutes the basic imperative from which the practice of medicine must draw its inspiration. Do all in your power to raise awareness in the community, in national health care systems and in those in charge of them, in order that the considerable resources earmarked for research and technology always have the integral service of life as their objective."

Tending the sick, he highlighted, means "approaching the suffering person and not simply attending a sick body. This is why health care workers are asked to make a commitment that has the nature of a vocation. ... Giving the sick and their families reasons for hope in the face of the pressing questions that assail them, that is your mission. The Church is near you and shares with you this passionate service to life."

The Pope mentioned that during the conference, reflection had been given to health conditions in certain regions of the world, "where there is a lack of policies supporting primary care itself." He concluded by making a fresh call to the leaders of nations "that, as much as possible, they may favor the conditions appropriate for a resolution of such dramatic situations of injustice and marginalization."

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