Reporting of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in the Netherlands:descriptive study

Background: An important principle underlying the Dutch Euthanasia Act is physicians' responsibility to alleviate patients' suffering. The Dutch Act states that euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are not punishable if the attending physician acts in accordance with criteria of due care. These criteria concern the patient's request, the patient's suffering (unbearable and hopeless), the information provided to the patient, the presence of reasonable alternatives, consultation of another physician and the applied method of ending life. To demonstrate their compliance, the Act requires phy... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Buiting, Hilde
van Delden, Johannes
Onwuteaka-Philpsen, Bregje
Rietjens, Judith
Rurup, Mette
van Tol, Donald
Gevers, Joseph
van der Maas, Paul
van der Heide, Agnes
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2009
Reihe/Periodikum: Buiting , H , van Delden , J , Onwuteaka-Philpsen , B , Rietjens , J , Rurup , M , van Tol , D , Gevers , J , van der Maas , P & van der Heide , A 2009 , ' Reporting of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in the Netherlands : descriptive study ' , Bmc medical ethics , vol. 10 , 18 . https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6939-10-18
Schlagwörter: OF-LIFE DECISIONS / MEDICAL-PRACTICE / OREGON / DEATH / CARE
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-29190393
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : https://hdl.handle.net/11370/1cd3eb87-c9f0-4937-8dbb-3c0cf2f43537

Background: An important principle underlying the Dutch Euthanasia Act is physicians' responsibility to alleviate patients' suffering. The Dutch Act states that euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide are not punishable if the attending physician acts in accordance with criteria of due care. These criteria concern the patient's request, the patient's suffering (unbearable and hopeless), the information provided to the patient, the presence of reasonable alternatives, consultation of another physician and the applied method of ending life. To demonstrate their compliance, the Act requires physicians to report euthanasia to a review committee. We studied which arguments Dutch physicians use to substantiate their adherence to the criteria and which aspects attract review committees' attention. Methods: We examined 158 files of reported euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide cases that were approved by the review committees. We studied the physicians' reports and the verdicts of the review committees by using a checklist. Results: Physicians reported that the patient's request had been well-considered because the patient was clear-headed (65%) and/or had repeated the request several times (23%). Unbearable suffering was often substantiated with physical symptoms (62%), function loss (33%), dependency (28%) or deterioration (15%). In 35%, physicians reported that there had been alternatives to relieve patients' suffering which were refused by the majority. The nature of the relationship with the consultant was sometimes unclear: the consultant was reported to have been an unknown colleague (39%), a known colleague (21%), otherwise (25%), or not clearly specified in the report (24%). Review committees relatively often scrutinized the consultation (41%) and the patient's (unbearable) suffering (32%); they had few questions about possible alternatives (1%). Conclusion: Dutch physicians substantiate their adherence to the criteria in a variable way with an emphasis on physical symptoms. The information they provide ...