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Thursday 24 May RNW - NEWS, ANALYSIS AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION IN 10 LANGUAGES, WORLDWIDE 24/7 ON RADIO, TV AND ONLINE
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Dutch death wish clinic to open soon

Published on : 20 January 2011 - 4:52pm | By RNW News Desk (Photo: Inferis)
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A clinic for Dutch people who want to die will likely open within a year. Right to Die Netherlands has taken the initiative for the clinic, where patients can put an end to their lives under medical supervision. The idea is hugely controversial.

The clinic is meant for people who are asking for euthanasia, but are unable to find a medical practitioner willing to assist them. Euthanasia is legal in the Netherlands under very strict conditions. A doctor has to declare that the patient is terminally ill and does not have any chances of recovery. Many doctors, however, are unwilling to co-operate, saying the rules are unclear, and that they are fearing legal consequences.

Medical supervision


Swiss suicide clinics

A similar initiative 12 years ago in Switzerland has led to a chain of clinics helping people who want to die. The Dignitas clinics primarily help terminally ill patients. Medical staff does not administer medication, all the doctors do is supply the drugs which the patients have to administer to themselves. Dignitas clinics accept both Swiss and foreign patients.

Right to Die NL expects some one thousand people a year to enter the clinic, mainly from three groups: the terminally ill, people suffering from chronic mental disorders and people suffering from early-onset dementia.

People with a deeply felt death wish, who are convinced their lives have been completed, can be admitted to the clinic if a doctor agrees. They can end their lives under professional supervision, either by starving themselves or by taking medication. Only Dutch nationals can apply for admission.

The average stay in the clinic is expected to be three days.

Too short
The medical doctors' umbrella group KNMG admits that the self-help clinic would be legal, but remains opposed. Euthanasia is not always the best solution for people with a deathwish, they say. And a mere three days is too little, according to the doctors, particularly for psychiatric patients.

(rk/ae)

 

 

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Discussion

humanoid 13 May 2011 - 6:11pm

exellente! can't wait until its open!

Anonymous 3 February 2011 - 1:52pm

michael finlay wants to allow it

Anonymous 3 February 2011 - 1:51pm

allowed

Anonymous 22 January 2011 - 5:16pm / Lalaland

We all will join the great majority.

Saucen Al Nabulcy 20 January 2011 - 11:36pm / Netherlands

Before they are all measures of the following doctors and staff in this service is invaluable to human patient in need of help, I would like to refer to the side of the last of the scientific development in the field of medicine but a nutritional medicine is the area of broad and detailed I do not want to enter into the details but I would like to refer to being myself and have watched very carefully in the area of food intake and my mental state, and discovered that some foods caused me a feeling of severe distress to the point I hate the continuation of life.
When I realized that to Astbelt and those with other foods and equivalent interest Vakeshvt that my life has changed upside down heel, and all praise.
I call gentlemen working in the field of medicine focusing on nutritional medicine, it means control Valsitrp boil disease, because the food no matter how necessary Fahip a Trojan Horse to introduce toxins into our bodies is not always good and good and does not Daimaalrde bad.

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