Third time in a year for the Levenseindekliniek in The Hague.

A Dutch end-of-life clinic has been reprimanded for the third time in a year for moving the goal posts for euthanasia. The Levenseindekliniek in The Hague helped a woman to die because she complained of severe tinnitus, or ringing in the ears. An independent review commission conceded that tinnitus could satisfy the criteria for legal euthanasia, but said that the clinic should have referred 47-year-old Gaby Olthuis, a mother of two, to a psychiatrist. The other two complaints concerned an elderly woman who did not want to enter a nursing home and an elderly psychiatric patient.

The symptoms that Ms Olthuis claimed to have were severe: she constantly heard the sound of screeching metal and even the rustle of opening a plastic bag hurt.

Levenseindekliniek opened in 2012 for patients who could not find a doctor who agreed to euthanase them. Since then they have helped about 250 people to die. The director of the clinic, Steven Pleiter, said that he was exasperated by the reprimand. “We try to help people and do it in a very precise and careful manner. We find it annoying that we now have to deal with this for the third time.”

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Creative commons
euthanasia
Netherlands