A Catholic care home in Belgium is being sued by relatives of a patient for not offering euthanasia to her.

The Catholic Herald reports that, when the St Augustinus home in Diest declined a request for a doctor to administer a lethal injection to Mariette Buntjens in 2011, the woman’s family transferred her to a private care home where the procedure was carried out. The family then initiated legal proceedings, claiming Mariette had endured unnecessary “physical and mental suffering” by not being allowed to die at St Augustinus.

Belgian law currently permits doctors to conscientiously object to euthanasia, which was legalised in 2002, but is silent on whether institutions enjoy the same right.

Euthanasia in law has been permissible in Belgium since 2002, subject to set guidelines. However, despite being limited to adults and so-called ‘emancipated children’ who are ‘suffering unbearably’ and who are able to consent, critics insist the law today is interpreted so loosely that the procedure is increasingly available on demand. Doctors have been accused of giving lethal injections to the disabled, the mentally ill and those with dementia, as well as patients who are terminally ill, while a report carried in the Journal of Medical Ethics in 2015 charged that the majority of euthanasia cases in Belgium are illegal killings of patients who have not given consent.

Numbers of deaths by euthanasia have also soared incrementally over a decade, from 235 in 2003 to 1,807 in 2013.

The Buntjens case emerged just after a pre-Christmas announcement by Archbishop Jozef De Kesel of Brussels, that no Church-run hospital or care home would permit euthanasia under any circumstance. Pro-euthanasia doctors and politicians have since called for the Catholic Church in Belgium to be stripped of funding until it allows euthanasia on its premises.

The case against St Augustinus, viewed as a test case for Church-run bodies will be heard in April.