
Euthanasia nurses in Belgium smother patient when lethal drugs fail to work
Alexina Wattiez wasn’t supposed to die like this. The 36-year-old Belgian woman was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2021. She deteriorated rapidly and was in so much pain that she asked for euthanasia.
On March 29 last year, her doctor, the two nurses who were looking after her, her partner, Christophe Stulens, and their 15-year-old daughter gathered in anticipation of a peaceful death. Stulens and the daughter were waiting outside while the doctor administered the lethal injection.
The facts are still obscure, but this much is known. Alexina’s partner and daughter heard her screaming. When they entered the room, she was dead, but it appears that the two nurses had smothered her with a pillow. The lethal dose had not been sufficient to kill her.
It appears that neither the nurses nor the doctor reported the failed euthanasia. But two days before the funeral, someone informed the public prosecutor’s office. A forensic pathologist examined the body and noticed traces of suffocation on the victim’s face.
Her family has demanded an investigation. “Could you imagine that your mother or your wife could end up suffocated by a cushion as part of her end of life? I think no one can conceive and imagine that,” says their lawyer, Maître Renaud Molders-Pierre.
More Stories
American Medical Association spurns assisted suicide proposals
The American Medical Association has resisted a push to adopt a position of neutrality on assisted suicide and euthanasia. In...
Sudan: indifference kills
The eyes of the world are on Gaza, where some 15,000 Palestinians have been killed in the in Israel’s response...
Gambling with health
The world-wide growth of the gambling industry should worry public health authorities, says The Lancet. Taking advantage of the celebration...
Finnish psychiatrist highlights the dangers of gender-affirmative care for children
Aspects of the gender affirmation model followed by American physicians have failed, are not evidence-based, and are “extremely unethical”, a...
Canadian psychiatrists defend euthanasia for mental illness
Debate in Canada over the upcoming inclusion of mental illness as a reason for medical aid in dying is heating...
The medical profession needs to reflect on the crimes of Nazi doctors, says The Lancet
Medical ethics education must be informed by a robust understanding of medicine’s role within the Nazi regime, according to a...