Netherlands Launches New Mobile Euthanasia Units

On Thursday, the Netherlands launched new mobile euthanasia units that allow a team of doctors and nurses to visit extremely sick patients whose primary care physicians refused to end the patients’ lives.  The program, entitled Levenseinde (“Life End”), is free to Dutch citizens.  Either the patient or the patient’s family may apply for a mobile visit via phone or email. However, the units only get dispatched to patients suffering tremendous pain and who have repeatedly articulated their wish to die.

The unit will interview the patient’s primary care physician to determine why he or she would not end the patient’s life. A commission made up of a doctor, a legal specialist, and an ethics specialist ensures that required criteria was followed for each euthanasia case.

See Netherlands Dispatches Mobile Euthanasia Units, MSNBC, Mar. 1, 2012. 

Special thanks to David S. Luber (Attorney at law, Florida Probate Attorney Wills and Estates Law Firm) for bringing this article to my attention.