Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide (Review Procedures) Act

Euthanasia, assisted suicide and non-resuscitation on request

Euthanasia is performed past the attending physician administering a fatal dose of a suitable drug to the patient on his or her express asking. The relevant Dutch legislation also covers md-assisted suicide (where the dr. supplies the drug but the patient administers it). Palliative sedation is not a form of euthanasia: the patient is merely rendered unconscious with pain reducing drugs and eventually dies from natural causes.

What the law says

Euthanasia and assisted suicide are legal only if the criteria laid downwardly in the Dutch Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide (Review Procedures) Deed are fully observed. Only and so is the physician concerned immune from criminal prosecution. Requests for euthanasia often come up from patients experiencing unbearable suffering with no prospect of improvement. Their asking must be fabricated earnestly and with total conviction. They see euthanasia as the only escape from the state of affairs. All the same, patients have no accented right to euthanasia and doctors no absolute duty to perform information technology.

Guidelines for euthanasia of semi-witting patients

Sometimes, a patient may lapse into semi-consciousness just before a scheduled euthanasia. If there are still signs of suffering, the medico may perform euthanasia despite the patient'south lowered consciousness. This is laid downward in guidelines on the subject prepared by the Regal Dutch Medical Association at the request of the Board of Procurators Full general of the Public Prosecution Office and the Healthcare Inspectorate. These guidelines on euthanasia of patients with lowered consciousness do not stand for any implicit relaxation of the police; they are merely designed to provide guidance for physicians in this difficult state of affairs.

Advance directives

Some people experience that they would wish euthanasia to exist performed if they ever observe themselves in a detail situation which they would now regard as unbearable and offering no prospect of comeback. Their best course of action is to discuss the situation they envisage with their family unit doctor and brand a written directive covering those circumstances. Such advance directives define the precise circumstances in which the patients concerned would wish euthanasia to exist performed. The document constitutes a request to the md and must incorporate a clear and unambiguous expression of the patient'south wishes.

Euthanasia and assisted suicide

Termination of life on request tin accept two forms. In the case of euthanasia, the physician administers a fatal dose of a suitable drug to the patient. In assisted suicide, past contrast, the medico supplies the lethal drug but the patient administers information technology. Both forms are covered past the Act and in both cases doctors must fulfil the statutory due care criteria. Every case of euthanasia and assisted suicide must be reported to one of the 5 regional euthanasia review committees. The committee will judge if the physician has taken due care. If a md fails to do and so, he may be prosecuted. Penalties vary just may be equally much as 12 years in prison house for euthanasia and up to 3 years for assisting suicide.

Euthanasia and minors

Minors may themselves asking euthanasia from the historic period of 12, although the consent of the parents or guardian is mandatory until they reach the age of sixteen. Sixteen and seventeen-yr-olds exercise not need parental consent in principle, but their parents must be involved in the decision-making process. From the historic period of 18, young people have the right to request euthanasia without parental involvement.

Euthanasia and patients with dementia

For some people, the prospect of ever suffering from dementia may exist sufficient reason to make an accelerate directive (living volition). This can either exist drawn upwardly independently or discussed first with the family dr.. A physician can perform euthanasia on a patient with dementia merely if such a directive exists, if statutory care is taken and if, in his stance, the patient is experiencing unbearable suffering with no prospect of comeback.

Review committee

Doctors accept a duty to report all unnatural deaths to the municipal pathologist. In cases of euthanasia, the latter and then notifies a regional review committee. Such committees comprise, at the minimum, a medical doctor, an ethicist and a legal practiced. The committee assesses whether the physician who performed the euthanasia has fulfilled the statutory due intendance criteria. The review committee procedure is intended to ensure greater transparency and consistency in the manner cases are reported and assessed.
The process benefits both the Public Prosecution Service and physicians. The statutory criteria and the findings of the review committees tell doctors how their actions in detail cases are probable to stand up upward to legal, medical and upstanding scrutiny.

Practice not resuscitate medallion

A DNR (practice not resuscitate) medallion indicates that the wearer does not want to be resuscitated in a medical emergency. The wearer's proper noun, engagement of nascency, signature and photograph are engraved on the medallion, so that information technology fulfils all the statutory requirements for an advance directive.

Y'all tin can order a DNR medallion from the Dutch patients association, Patiëntenfederatie Nederland. DNR medallions issued by NVVE (a Dutch organisation that provides information and advice about euthanasia and assisted suicide) before seven June 2017 are still valid.

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Source: https://www.government.nl/topics/euthanasia/euthanasia-assisted-suicide-and-non-resuscitation-on-request

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