Belgium Leader In Organ Transplants From Those Euthanized.

Thursday, 16 May, 2002

Belgium legalises euthanasia

Belgium has legalised euthanasia – becoming the second country in the world to do so, after the Netherlands.  The Belgian bill – like the one in the Netherlands – sets out strict conditions governing assisted suicide.

 

Restrictions

The Belgian law sets out conditions under which suicide can be practised without giving doctors a licence to kill, correspondents say.

The law makes it easy for people who are not terminally ill to commit euthanasia

Filip Dewinter, Vlaams Blok

Patients wishing to end their own lives must be conscious when the demand is made and repeat their request for euthanasia. They have to be under “constant and unbearable physical or psychological pain” resulting from an accident or incurable illness.

The law gives patients the right to receive ongoing treatment with painkillers – the authorities have to pay to ensure that poor or isolated patients do not ask to die because they do not have money for such treatment.MORE

Belgium Leader In Organ Transplants From Those Euthanized.

Deaths from “voluntary euthanasia” in Belgium are approximated at 2 percent,  – 2,000 annually. At a recent conference in Brussels, a Belgian doctor reported that organ transplants are being done on euthanized patients and that Belgium leads in this practice.

Dr. Van Raemdonck reported that nine successful lung transplants from “voluntary euthanized” patients have been performed since 2007.

Families of hospitalized patients in Belgium should take notice of this practice. In 2010 a study revealed that nurses in Belgium admitted to terminating patients without their consent.

“The researchers found that a fifth of nurses admitted being involved in the assisted suicide of a patient. But nearly half of these  -  120 of 248  -  also said there was no consent.”  MORE

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