Comparison of palliative care in Turkey and Europe from ethical and legal perspective with country examples

Despite of having ongoing debates on end-of-life regulations and procedures, ethics of withholding and withdrawing treatments, euthanasia, physician assisted dying, access to pain medication, advance directives and living wills have started to be taken into consideration when formulating legal documents. Even though there are important differences between legal systems, these could be revealing about each society's attempt to reckon with difficult issues and provide some insight into the values that are operative or the way various values are weighted in that society. Therefore, comparative studies considered important to meet with minimum standards at the international level with respect to different cultural and common values. Across Europe, healthcare delivery for older populations is heavily varied with regard to policies, funding, ethical perspectives, and legislations. The aim of our study is to review existing legislation, regulations on palliative care in Turkey with comparison to legislation of some European countries. Since the early hospice/palliative care services founded in seven countries included Germany, Sweden, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and the United Kingdom, we choose to compare the legislation of those seven countries with Turkey. Therefore, this study based on reviewing published literature in order to see the position of Turkey in the European palliative care table.