Euthanasia cocktail on request
17/12/2005 17:53  - (SA)  

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Zurich - A hospital in Lausanne is to become the first in Switzerland to allow on-site assisted suicides for terminal patients having chosen to end their lives, it said on Saturday.

From January 2006, the University Hospital of the Canton of Vaud will introduce a voluntary euthanasia programme for patients too sick to return to their homes, an official said, confirming a report in the daily 24 Heures.

The hospital will, in certain cases, allow a specialist from the Exit euthanasia organisation or another external doctor to carry out an assisted suicide on its premises.

"Patients will have recourse to Exit or to an external doctor of their choice," the hospital confirmed on Saturday.

The patients concerned will ingest a death-inducing cocktail provided, while hospital staff have the choice of whether or not to attend.

Patients would only be able to request an assisted suicide if several conditions were met, including their being close to death and sound of mind and having expressed a persistent desire to die.

Alternative options such as palliative care will have to have been offered and put in place.

Until now, Swiss hospitals had refused Exit access to terminal patients in their care, meaning that only those capable of leaving hospital could choose to die.

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