A Dutch doctor has appeared in court after performing euthanasia on a patient suffering with severe dementia.
The 74 year old patient was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease when she died in 2016, and prosecutors say the doctor did not do enough to verify consent. It is the first case of its kind since the Netherlands legalised euthanasia in 2002. The doctor allegedly sedated the woman and asked her family to hold her down as she administered a lethal drug. Prosecutors say the patient showed resistance during the process, despite this, the doctor says she acted cautiously.
This is the first case of its kind in the country.
After being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s four years before she died, the patient wrote a statement saying that she wanted to be euthanized before entering a care home.
“I want to be able to decide while still in my senses and when I think the time is right.”
When the day came to end the woman’s life, a sedative was put in her coffee and she lost consciousness. But the woman then woke up and had to be held down by her daughter and husband while the process was finished.
The reason for the case is that the prosecutors question the woman’s ability to consent to ending her life despite her previous statement. At the centre of the case is the question of the woman’s ability to consent to ending her life despite her previous statement.
“A crucial question to this case is how long a doctor should continue consulting a patient with dementia, if the patient in an earlier stage already requested euthanasia,” prosecution service spokeswoman Sanna van der Harg said.
“We do not doubt the doctor’s honest intentions,” she said.
“A more intensive discussion with the demented patient” could have taken place before the decision to end her life, she added.
However, the daughter of the deceased woman thanked the doctor.
“The doctor freed my mother from the mental prison which she ended up in,” she said in a statement.
A verdict is expected to be reached in a couple of weeks.
