In October 2024, Célia Cassiano was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a degenerative disease
A Brazilian professor Célia Maria Cassiano, from Campinas, in the interior of São Paulo, underwent an assisted death procedure in Switzerland, according to a post on his Instagram on Wednesday (15). ‘I’m going to rest forever, like we all are, right?”, he said in a video published on social media.
In October 2024, Célia was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), a degenerative disease. A week ago, she traveled to Switzerland and had been posting about different trips she took in the country. On Wednesday, she published the video about her assisted suicide.
She studied Social Sciences, received a master’s degree in Multimedia at Unicamp and was an arts teacher at Sesc and Esamc, in Campinas.
Celia shared her treatment routine on social media since she was diagnosed and confessed that just over a year ago he decided that he would pursue his “right to have a dignified death”. “I’m super sharp intellectually, but physically I’m being destroyed by the disease. I evaluated it well and, just over a year ago, I decided that I would fight for my right to have a dignified death, an assisted death”, he declared.
In the last six months, Célia said that asked for help from many legal and medical professionals in Brazil, but changed plans when he saw that it would not be possible to carry out the procedure in Brazilian territory.
“I changed my strategy and decided to go abroad. I had a lot of intense work to locate an organization from Switzerlandwhere I am, place where the assisted suicide is permitted by law. In Brazil, I tried a lot of help, but when I said what I was going to do, people just ran away, stopped talking,” he said.
Celia deceived some doctors to obtain the necessary reports for what he said was an “experimental treatment” of ALS in Switzerland. “I needed a lawyer to help me get documents from the forum. I also needed medical reports. I told everyone that I was coming (to Switzerland) to undergo treatment in an ALS clinical trial.”
The teacher also said that feels at peace because he “feels no pain” in his death, as I was suffering a lot from the lack of independence for simple tasks such as going to the bathroom and taking a shower. “I lived a delicious life, these last few days here were the best of my life”, he confessed.
Finally, she encouraged people here in Brazil to fight for their rights to have a dignified death with the creation of a law that allows the right to choose how they want to die.
See this photo on Instagram
A post shared by Célia Maria Cassiano (@celiamariacassiano)
