Dutch medical teams to help terminal patients die at home

By Fernando Heller Feb 23, 2012, 2:06 GMT

Amsterdam - The Netherlands has legalized euthanasia, but many doctors are reluctant to carry it out, which is why a Dutch association will next month launch six mobile units of doctors and nurses to help terminally ill patients end their own lives at home.

Right to Die-NL, know as NVVE, was established in 1973 after a doctor was found guilty of voluntary euthanasia and received a one-week suspended sentence.

The society, which today has 131,000 members and some 150 volunteers in the Netherlands, finances its activities through a yearly membership fee of 17.50 euros (23 dollars).

Starting March 1, NVVE will have six mobile medical teams who will help patients with terminal or other serious and incurable illnesses to end their lives.

'Many doctors and nurses who work for us are 'semi-volunteers,' meaning they have other, main jobs,' NVVE spokeswoman Walburg de Jong told dpa. 'It is their conviction (in favour of euthanasia) that makes them help the NVVE.'

The NVVE says on its website that some 2,700 people choose assisted suicide each year in the Netherlands, which in 2001 became the first country to legalize euthanasia.

The procedure can only be performed if the patient has an incurable disease, intolerable pain, and no hope of improvement. Patients must also state clearly that they wish to die.

Doctors who carry out euthanasia under those rules are protected from prosecution. Nevertheless, 'many Dutch doctors are still afraid of performing euthanasia,' de Jong says.

'They refer to their religious beliefs, or simply do not know all the details of the new legislation regulating this area,' the NVVE spokeswoman explains. Because of their convictions or lack of legal or medical knowledge, 'many doctors are not in a position to carry out euthanasia,' she added.

The NVVE focuses on assisting patients and families who have trouble finding doctors to help the patient die. This group includes mainly chronically ill patients and those with different types of dementia, according to the association's website.

The NVVE's activities include informing, assistance with documents, counselling, mediating with doctors and accompanying patients to hospital, according to the website.

From March 1, the association will extend its activities. Six mobile teams comprising a doctor and one or two nurses will be available to help patients pass away in a 'dignified and painless' manner. The teams will make sure the patients meet the legal criteria for allowing them to die voluntarily.

'Usually, patients want to die at home, but we also have a clinic to help them when the time comes,' de Jong says.

The 'Clinic for terminating life' in The Hague will start coordinating the assistance programme in March. It is expected to be ready to start receiving patients in mid-2012.

Despite the NVVE's insistence on the legality of its activities, the mobile medical teams are likely to spark controversy at home and abroad, the association's representatives say.

However, many analysts see the mobile teams as reflecting a growing acceptance of euthanasia in the Netherlands, which even has a documentary film festival aimed at fighting prejudice about the subject.

Sponsored by the NVVE, the festival is called The End. Its most recent edition earlier this month featured movies such as Kill Me Please by Olias Barco, produced in Belgium in 2010, and The Suicide Tourist, a Canadian 2007 documentary by John Zaritsky.