A Dutch doctor who was reprimanded for administering a lethal injection to an elderly woman with dementia despite her ‘resistance’ is under a criminal investigation, it was reported in July.
An inquiry into the 74-year-old woman’s death in 2016 revealed that the woman, who had Alzheimer’s, was surreptitiously given a coffee containing a sedative, and held down by her family as she struggled against the injection.
The Hague’s chief public prosecutor is investigating the case which could lead to the first-ever prosecution over the treatment of a patient under the Dutch euthanasia laws.
She had renewed her living will about a year before she was given the lethal injection, writing an ‘advance directive’ asking to be killed if the disease became too severe. But when the issue of asking to die was raised, she said: ‘Not now, it’s not so bad yet’.
However, after being admitted to a care home seven weeks before her death, its specialist doctor was persuaded by the woman’s husband that she wanted the lethal injection.
Falklands
Meanwhile, Dignity in Dying commended the Legislative Assembly of the Falkland Islands as a ‘compassionate, sensible and progressive society which cares deeply about its terminally ill citizens’ when it voted in late July to support assisted suicide.
A motion that terminally ill residents should have the right to die at a time and place of their choosing was passed by four votes to three with one abstention.
