Swiss suicide clinics 'helping depressives die'
Pastor Dale Morgan
Swiss suicide clinics 'helping depressives die'*
By Bojan Pancevski, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:39am BST 03/06/2007
Prosecutors are calling for tougher regulations on Switzerland's
assisted suicide clinics after uncovering evidence that some of the
foreign clients they help to die are simply depressed rather than
suffering incurable pain.
The clinics, which attract hundreds of foreigners, including Britons,
every year, have been accused of failing to carry out proper
investigations into whether patients meet the requirements of
Switzerland's right-to-die laws.
In some cases, foreign clients are being given drugs to commit suicide
within hours of their arrival, which critics say leaves doctors and
psychologists unable to conduct a detailed assessment or to provide
appropriate counselling.
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Andreas Brunner, the senior prosecutor of the Zurich canton, told The
Sunday Telegraph: "We are not trying to ban the so-called death tourism,
but the outsourcing of suicide must be put under stricter control.
"Prosecutors look into every suicide, assisted or not, and there are
many cases where it is not clear whether the assisted person has chosen
death in full possession of their decision-making capacity. But
investigations are difficult due to lack of evidence after the suicide.
"We, therefore, demand that the federal government amend the legislation
to enable closer and lengthier monitoring of suicide patients before
their deaths."
Mr Brunner said that there had been a number of cases where prosecutors
or relatives of people who committed assisted suicide had taken legal
action against doctors or organisations, although he declined to go into
details.
Swiss laws allow doctors to provide "passive suicide assistance" to
people who are terminally ill or in great suffering, with patients given
a cocktail of drugs that they must administer themselves.
A handful of clinics provide the service, with two, Dignitas and Exit
International, also offering it to foreigners, who make up a large
proportion of the 300 assisted suicides that take place each year.
A Dignitas member who desires suicide must apply in writing, proving
illness and pain, with a doctor's proof and prognosis. There is concern,
however, that foreign patients may find it easier than Swiss clients to
provide fake medical and psychiatric records.
Questions over the screening of foreign patients first surfaced when it
emerged that a 67-year-old German woman who committed suicide with help
from Dignitas had presented the clinic with faked papers saying that she
was dying of cirrhosis of the liver. It turned out that she had been
suffering from alcoholism and depression. Dr Daniel Hell, of the Swiss
National Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics, a government
regulatory body, said: "We suspect there could have been cases where
people who suffered from a temporary depression have been helped to
their deaths."
Ludwig Minelli, the lawyer and journalist who founded Dignitas in 1998,
said there was no need for further legislation. Accusing Mr Brunner of
waging a crusade against Dignitas, he said: "If the investigations had a
real basis I would have been summoned for questioning, but this has not
yet happened. Mr Brunner only wants to perpetuate the suspicions because
he hopes a law will be passed that will limit Dignitas."