A doctor who slipped a sedative in her patient’s coffee before administering a lethal drug to her has been acquitted of breaking Dutch euthanasia laws in a landmark case.
Prosecutors had accused the unnamed doctor of failing to consult the 74-year-old, who had Alzheimer’s, but a judge ruled that a declaration written by the patient four years earlier had sufficed.
Applause broke out in the courtroom after the court heard that the doctor had been right to abide by the woman’s stated wishes and that there was no legal duty to verify the “current death wish” in such a case.
“We conclude that all requirements of the euthanasia legislation had been met. Therefore the suspect is acquitted of all charges,” the judge, Mariette Renckens, told the court in The Hague. “We believe that given the deeply demented condition of the patient the doctor did not need to verify her wish for euthanasia.”
The court’s verdict was seen as an important test of the Netherlands’ pioneering euthanasia laws, given that people are living longer and are more likely to develop conditions that leave them confused in their final years.
Since 2002, doctors in the Netherlands can carry out euthanasia if a patient is enduring “unbearable and endless suffering” and has requested to die “earnestly and with full conviction”.
