The documentary followed the process of the euthanasia of three persons: a woman with dementia, a man with an obsessive compulsive disorder and a woman who was ‘tired of living’.
The Life Ending Clinic was founded in 2012, for people who want euthanasia, but couldn’t get it from their own doctor. Since the start, doctors of the clinic have assisted more than 700 people to end their lives.
According to the Dutch Euthanasia Bill (entered into force on April 1, 2002), you don’t have to be terminally ill to be eligible for euthanasia.
If you suffer ‘unbearably’ and your situation is ‘hopeless’, you can request euthanasia. The documentary ‘Levenseindekliniek’ focussed on cases of people who were not terminally ill.
Documentary producer Marcel Ouddeken followed three doctors of the Clinic for almost one and a half years.
The documentary contains the whole process of the work of the Clinic, from the intake untill the examination of euthanasia.
Ouddeken made a very informative, and also emotional film. The most remarkable moment was that moment when Hannie Goudriaan, a woman with dementia, was euthanized, while sitting in an easy chair, with her husband beside her.
Although a majority of the Dutch population is in favour of euthanasia, the euthanasia of a patient who is not terminally ill was never before addressed on television.
Her general practitioner, who refused the request for euthanasia of Hannie, explains why he couldn’t go along with her wish: “She never used the word euthanasia, she never told me literally that she wanted to die. I also asked a second doctor and a neurologist to examine her wish. They also were in doubt about her mental competence.”
After the Euthanasia Bill was entered into force in Holland, most cases of euthanasia involved a terminally ill patient, especially people with cancer.
It took seven years untill the first person with dementia was euthanized, and eight years untill the first person with a mental illness succeeded the procedure, without a punishment for the doctor involved.
Since then, dozens of patients from these groups get the death they wanted. Most of the doctors refuse to end their lives. Thats why the NVVE (the Dutch Right to Die Organization) started the Clinic.
In a discussion programme after the release of the documentary, Professor of Psychiatry, Frank Koerselman, argued that the requests for euthanasia stem from a poor state of (palliative) care for people with dementia or psychiatric problems.
He called for improving palliative care, especially for people with psychiatric disorders, saying: “We need better palliative psychiatry.”
In Holland, there are two hospices especially for psychiatric patients. However, most of the nations’ hospices, will not include people with serious psychiatric problems such as borderline personality disorder or schizophrenia, because they fear problems (disturbance for instance) for other people using that hospice’s services.
If patients with psychiatric problems don’t live close to those two special hospices, they stay in their own homes or in a psychiatric hospital, with no special palliative care.
In 1994, Dutch television showed ‘Dood op verzoek’ (Death at request). In that documentary, a patient with ALS succesfully requested euthanasia. This broadcast caused much commotion, especially outside Holland. It can be expected that ‘Levenseindekliniek’ will cause the same reaction, possibly even more.
Rob Bruntink is editor-in-chief of Pallium magazine, as well as Pal voor U, a magazine about palliative care specifically for patients and their relatives. Along with his wife, he directs Bureau MORBidee, an organisation aimed at starting the conversation about death in Holland.
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