The South Korean government is set to overhaul its life-sustaining treatment decision system, which has been in place since 2018, to allow patients to end meaningless medical interventions and die with dignity. This initiative aims to address practical challenges faced in medical settings and to better ensure patients' rights to make their own decisions. The government plans to launch an expert committee and gather public input to produce recommendations for system improvements by the end of the year.
On September 9, the Ministry of Health and Welfare held the first meeting of the 'Special Expert Committee for Improving the Life-Sustaining Treatment Decision System' at Space Share in Seoul, marking the start of formal discussions. The committee, composed of 14 experts from the medical, ethical, patient advocacy, and legal fields, will address key issues such as the timing of treatment suspension and the decision-making process for unaccompanied patients, aiming to develop comprehensive recommendations by year-end.
The life-sustaining treatment decision system allows terminally ill patients to voluntarily discontinue medical procedures that only prolong life without providing therapeutic benefits, such as CPR, dialysis, and chemotherapy. While the system was introduced to respect patients' autonomy and facilitate dignified deaths, discrepancies between legal procedures and actual medical practices have created significant challenges for patients, families, and healthcare providers.
A major point of contention is determining the precise timing for treatment suspension. The current system requires medical professionals to assess whether a patient is in a 'terminal' or 'end-of-life' state, but this distinction can often be unclear, leading to confusion in practice. Additionally, there is an urgent need to clarify legal provisions regarding who can make life-sustaining treatment decisions for unaccompanied patients, who lack family members to consult.
The newly established expert committee will examine these issues from a multidisciplinary perspective and seek solutions. The committee plans to hold regular meetings and expert presentations to deeply discuss the main issues and establish fundamental principles for system improvement.
Moreover, the government intends to go beyond expert discussions by directly incorporating public feedback. In the second half of the year, the Medical Innovation Committee, under the Prime Minister's office, will include the life-sustaining treatment decision system as a topic for citizen panel discussions to gather public opinions.
The committee aims to comprehensively reflect the results of this public discourse in its expert discussions, ultimately presenting recommendations for legal and institutional improvements based on social consensus by the end of the year.
Kim Jang-han, chair of the Special Expert Committee, stated, "We will closely examine the difficulties that have arisen during the implementation of the system and ensure that we listen to a wide range of opinions from citizens, as well as experts. Our goal is to develop a life-sustaining treatment decision system that all citizens can trust, based on social consensus."
* This article has been translated by AI.
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