Chapter 1. Law faced with pain

Abstract

Unlike what is happening in France and other western countries, no legal regulations rule palliative medical care in Tunisia. The crucial issue of patients’ pains in the final stage of illness is precisely situated at this level. The question to ask is to know whether the care through the law of situations so delicate and painful is necessary, and the other question is to know, in the opposite case, which is the tunisian one, what are other possible means to deal with these situations. Indeed the moral as well as the medical code of ethics seem to us sufficient in this case to set up safeguards against existing gaps. There are two kinds of last resorts currently existing in Tunisia to govern situations of patients’ pains. The first one is a situation of transposing other current legal regulations to this specific subject; of course, these regulations prove totally inadequate. The second one to solve them is also inappropriate since it deals with legislation related to narcotics and directly leads to confusion from help to struggle against pain to common drug addiction. Therefore, a legislation specific to palliative medical care really proves essential.