Dutch doctor to be prosecuted with breaching euthanasia laws in landmark case
- Patient signed a living will saying that she wanted euthanasia if she was competent in her mind at the time of its execution
- She had later given differing statements about her desire for euthanasia, prosecutors said, and her mental health had deteriorated
A doctor who slipped a sedative into a 74-year-old woman’s coffee before administering a lethal drug as members of her family held her down is to be the first medic to be prosecuted for breaching Dutch euthanasia laws.
A public prosecutor in The Hague said in a statement that the doctor could not have unambiguously come to the conclusion that the patient wanted to die.
It is the first prosecution since Dutch laws on euthanasia were drawn up in 2002 to allow a doctor to euthanise a patient if it could be shown they were experiencing unbearable suffering and making an informed choice to die.
The patient at the centre of the case was in a nursing home and suffered from severe dementia. Five years earlier, she signed a living will saying that she wanted euthanasia if she was competent in her mind at the time of its execution.
She had later given differing statements about her desire for euthanasia, prosecutors said, and her mental health had deteriorated by the time of her death.
On the day that she was killed, the doctor had a mid-morning coffee with the patient, her husband and her adult child, in what was described by the medic as a “cosy” atmosphere.
The doctor should have checked with the woman whether she still had a death wish by discussing this with her