“It is perhaps the act which provokes the most emotion in the doctor”, confides a practitioner who carries out euthanasia in Belgium

The government’s bill on active assistance in dying arrives on Wednesday, May 15, before the National Assembly. This project establishes – under conditions – a form of assisted suicide with the exception of euthanasia.

In Brussels, our reporter went to the upscale district of Ixelles, to the basement of a building under construction: this is where Yves de Locht’s office is located. Between two consultations, this general practitioner receives patients for “end of life” interviews. It checks whether the criteria are met: do they have an incurable physical or psychological illness, which causes unrelievable suffering? Over the last ten years, Yves de Locht estimates having euthanized between 80 and 100 people: “It is perhaps the act that provokes the most emotion in the doctor,” he confides.

“After euthanasia, I give myself a day. I don’t practice medicine right away, I start again the next day.”

Yves de Locht

at franceinfo

It was at the hospital, always accompanied by another doctor, that he administered barbiturates: the patient fell asleep and then died. “It’s not at all trivialreports the doctor. Inflicting death is the most serious act that a doctor can perform. I have no regrets, over the many years that I have been doing this, I have convinced myself that I was not killing patients, that it was the disease that was killing them and that my role as a doctor was above all to ease their suffering, to respect the patient’s choice.”

Last year, 3,400 euthanasias were carried out in Belgium. This is about 3% of the total deaths in the country. The number has increased 13-fold in two decades and the Belgian system is starting to saturate. Moreover, Belgium is increasingly closing its doors to foreigners.

Last year, at least 101 French people were euthanized in Belgium, not without difficulty as Michèle Morret-Rauis reports. Retired oncologist, she still performs euthanasia,
in connection with the association for the right to die with dignity: “For example, the department that I headed before being retired accepted French people, who therefore came for palliative care. But the number of beds is very limited in palliative care, places are expensive. So the head of department who is arrived after me had another conception : ‘We’re not going to take all the misery in the world, the French just have to manage, they just have to vote properly !'” Requests from foreigners are therefore added to those, more and more numerous, from Belgians.

The vast majority are people over 70 years old and suffering from cancer. But since 2014, euthanasia has been open to minors. Five minors have been euthanized in 10 years. On site, on this subject, the debates are lively, many doctors assert their conscience clause. And overall, young caregivers are more reluctant to perform euthanasia, notes Michèle Morret-Rauis: “There have been death threats lately, people filing complaints for ‘assassination’… All of this takes a lot of time”, she regrets. Between the lack of time and too much responsibilities, the fear, for her and for Yves de Locht, is to arrive at a time when there will no longer be enough doctors to cope with the demands.

Seeing France take up the issue does not reassure them, however. In any case, these practitioners follow the debates with great attention. Moreover, one point particularly bothered them in the government’s initial project: the notion of vital prognosis undertaken in the short or medium term. It was finally modified in a special committee by “advanced or terminal condition“, which would broaden the range of people eligible for this assistance in dying. Will there be fewer French requests if the text is adopted? That is their wish.

France would like to legalize assisted suicide with “euthanasia exception”, in other words, it is up to the patient to administer the lethal substance themselves. Michèle Morret-Rauis warns, she hopes that patients will benefit from injections and not from drinking solutions.

“If they don’t swallow quickly enough in the middle of the bottle, they fall asleep,” she describes, “and then they wake up. So a doctor has to be there to inject them with something, because there may be hiccups.”

Michèle Morret-Rauis

at franceinfo

The French text provides for the presence of a health professional but this will perhaps not prevent certain controversies as in Belgium. Even recently, at the end of last year, the euthanasia of a woman in her thirties did not work. She was finally suffocated with a cushion. An investigation is underway.