Euthanasia has become a common way to die in the Netherlands, accounting for 4.5% of deaths, according to resear-chers who say requests are increasing from people who are not terminally ill.
In 2002, the Netherlands became the first country in the world that made it legal for doctors to help people die. Both euthanasia, where doctors actively kill patients, and assisted suicide, where physicians prescribe patients a lethal dose of drugs, are allowed. People must be “suffering unbearably” with no hope of relief — but their condi-tion does not have to be fatal.
“It looks like patients are now more willing to ask for euthanasia and physicians are more willing to grant it,” said lead author Dr Agnes Van der Heide of Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam.
The 25-year review published in New England Journal of Medicine is based on physician questionnaires. The use of numerous methods to shorten patients’ lives “to relieve end-of-life suffering has become common practice in the Netherlands,” the authors said in the report.
The review shows that in 1990, before it was legal, 1.7% of deaths were from euthanasia or assisted suicide. That rose to 4.5% by 2015. The vast majority — 92% — had serious illness and the rest had health problems from old age, early-stage dementia or psychia-tric problems or a combination. More than a third of those who died were over 80.
