A Dutch doctor who carried out euthanasia on a 74-year-old woman with Alzheimer’s is being tried for murder, in the first court case since the Netherlands legalised the procedure.
However, the public prosecution is not asking for a punishment.
A 68-year-old retired nursing home doctor, named as Catharina A., was charged with murder for carrying out euthanasia on the woman in April 2016.
The doctor had given a sedative to the patient in her coffee and asked family members to hold her down when the woman appeared to struggle against a drip to administer the fatal medicine.
The controversial case comes amid a period of concern about euthanasia involving people with psychiatric problems and dementia in the Netherlands.
The case has provoked strong responses. Jaap Schuurmans, a GP and researcher, was one of 450 doctors to sign a petition saying they would not perform euthanasia for an incapacitated patient. He told The Daily Telegraph: “There is an urgent need for this case. Doctors are being put under moral and time pressure from families, and this is a real worry.”
But Agnes Wolbert, chairman of the NVVE pro-euthanasia organisation, argued in a statement that the case should never have come to court. “The woman was clearly suffering, and the doctor had already been lightly censured by the medical ethics board. That is where it should have stopped.”
The Netherlands has since 2002 allowed citizens to request euthanasia if they are experiencing unbearable suffering with no prospect of improvement, and their doctor fulfils statutory due care criteria.