Naresh Trehan

Naresh Trehan is an Indian surgeon and medical administrator. He has served as personal surgeon to the President of India since 1991, has received numerous awards, including the Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan.

Trehan was the founder, executive director and chief cardiovascular surgeon of Escorts Heart Institute and Research Center (EHIRC), which opened in New Delhi, India in 1988. Presently, Trehan is the Founder Chairman of Medanta - The Medicity one of the largest multi-specialty hospital at Gurgaon, on the outskirts of Delhi, established in 2009. Trehan has been president of the International Society for Minimally Invasive Cardiac Surgery.

As chairman of Global Health Private Ltd., Trehan is overseeing the building of an integrated health care facility in Gurgaon, India, currently referred to as MediCity. MediCity will spread across 43 acres (170,000 m2) of land and is fashioned after institutions such as Mayo Medical School and Johns Hopkins Hospital. Collaborating with Siemens and other financial partners, MediCity aims to combine modern medicine with traditional medicine and holistic therapies.

Euthanasia

Euthanasia refers to the practice of ending a life in a manner which relieves pain and suffering. According to the House of Lords Select Committee on Medical Ethics, the precise definition of euthanasia is "a deliberate intervention undertaken with the express intention of ending a life, to relieve intractable suffering."

Euthanasia is categorized in different ways, which include voluntary, non-voluntary, or involuntary and active or passive. Euthanasia is usually used to refer to active euthanasia, and in this sense, euthanasia is usually considered to be criminal homicide, but voluntary, passive euthanasia is widely non-criminal.

The controversy surrounding euthanasia centers around a two-pronged argument by opponents which characterizes euthanasia as either voluntary "suicides", or as involuntary murders. (Hence, opponents argue that a broad policy of "euthanasia" is tantamount to eugenics). Much hinges on whether a particular death was considered an "easy", "painless", or "happy" one, or whether it was a "wrongful death". Proponents typically consider a death that increased suffering to be "wrongful", while opponents typically consider any deliberate death as "wrongful". "Euthanasia's" original meaning introduced the idea of a "rightful death" beyond that only found in natural deaths.

Euthanasia in India

Passive euthanasia is legal in India. On 7 March 2011 the Supreme Court of India legalised passive euthanasia by means of the withdrawal of life support to patients in a permanent vegetative state. The decision was made as part of the verdict in a case involving Aruna Shanbaug, who has been in a vegetative state for 37 years at King Edward Memorial Hospital. The high court rejected active euthanasia by means of lethal injection. In the absence of a law regulating euthanasia in India, the court stated that its decision becomes the law of the land until the Indian parliament enacts a suitable law. Active euthanasia, including the administration of lethal compounds for the purpose of ending life, is still illegal in India, and in most countries.