Posted on 12/18/2005 8:11:57 PM PST by Aussie Dasher
A SWISS hospital will allow terminally ill patients to commit suicide within its walls, becoming the first in the country to allow the practice.
The university hospital in Lausanne had previously sent patients wishing to die home, where they could call on one of the country's assisted suicide organisations to help them take their lives.
The hospital has decided to allow such organisations access from next year to patients who are so ill they cannot be transported to their homes, but will not itself help people take their lives.
"We're not asking our doctors to assist ... suicide, but we will open our gates to the associations," said Alberto Crespo, responsible for legal and ethical affairs at the hospital.
Assisting suicide is legal in Switzerland. But euthanasia - for instance when a doctor gives a patient a lethal injection on the patient's request - is not.
Many terminally ill foreigners travel to Switzerland to commit suicide, taking advantage of the Swiss rules which are among the world's most liberal on suicide.
Suicide in the hospital will only be allowed under strict conditions, Mr Crespo said. Patients have to be terminally ill, capable of making decisions and sane.
The hospital is the first in Switzerland to allow the practice, Mr Crespo said, although some homes for the elderly also allow assisted suicide.
And Europe criticized us for Tookie's termination??
"Slaughterhouse" was already taken.
Or are the ever-so-hospitable Swiss going to give you a piece and some bullets at the door??
This is an outrage - anyone who commits suicide should be given life in prison..err...
I bet they make you pay in advance.
You may get second opinions on this among those who have had to watch a terminally ill loved one slowly whither and die in pain, anguish and despair.
I don't have to. Sadly, been there, done that...twice.
I know I changed my opinion after I watched my sister die, slowly, of terminal lung cancer. In the final weeks the doctors had to inject morphine directly into her spinal column. I remember her having to be strapped down onto her hospital bed, as she floppd in pain like a fish out of water.
Now I will fight for anyone's right to linger on until the bitter end if they so choose, but there seems to me to be no reason to force someone like my sister to continue to suffer like that.
I've served in two wars, I've seen people die horribly, but I still haven't seen anything like that hospital ward.
No bullets would be too messy for the Swiss.
I am sure it is poison only.
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