Waiting lists are growing for psychiatric euthanasia in the Netherlands.

Alex Schadenberg
Executive Director, Euthanasia Prevention Coalition

A Trouw news article by Marten van de Wier is reporting that the waiting list for psychiatric euthanasia at the euthanasia clinic in the Netherlands has grown to more than 100 people with an expected waiting time of one year.

The Trouw report indicates that fewer psychiatrists are willing to participate in psychiatric euthanasia and there are seven psychiatrists at the euthanasia clinic who received approximately 800 requests for euthaansia this year. The Trouw reported (google translated):

The waiting time for a euthanasia trajectory for psychiatric patients has increased to more than a year at the Euthanasia Expertise Center. There are now a hundred people on the waiting list. These are people who are likely to be eligible for euthanasia based on an initial assessment.

The expertise center raised the alarm two years ago about the large influx of psychiatric patients. Then the waiting time was six to nine months. This year a total of around 800 psychiatric patients reported, compared to 692 last year. Only a small group actually get euthanasia: last year 56. Doctors outside the Expertise Center provided euthanasia to psychiatric patients eleven times.

The number of psychiatric euthanasia deaths may be lower but the euthanasia clinic continues to lethally inject at least one psychiatric patient per week.

The change in attitude towards psychiatric euthanasia is likely connected to the case of a doctor who completed the death of a woman with dementia, who had requested euthanasia, but at the time of death resisted.

The doctor put a sedative in her coffee, but the woman continued to resist, so the doctor had the family hold her down while she was lethally injected.

A Netherlands court acquitted the doctor but the Dutch prosecutor asked for the case to be reviewed by the Supreme court.

Many physicians in the Netherlands have indicated that they are not sure of the requirements for psychiatric euthanasia and they now refer these patients to the euthanasia clinic.