2023-06-17 05:54:17
In the nearly eight hundred letters that the Expertise Center for Euthanasia (EE) receives each year from people with psychological complaints, one message keeps recurring. ‘People say en masse: I want to die, but I’m not taken seriously,’ says Kit Vanmechelen, psychiatrist at EE. ‘In the letters you read about psychiatrists who say: you are here in the consulting room to talk about life. Or: if your only perspective is death, you’ve come to the wrong place.’
Vanmechelen says that she regularly gets psychiatrists on the phone who say that their patient has finished treatment. ‘A psychiatrist like that says: I thought I’d give Kit a call to find out when would be a good time to refer him to you.’
Vanmechelen shakes her head. ‘I then say: dear colleague, you can also do it yourself, with our help. Oh, then he says, well, no, I’d rather not, I’ve never done it, and I haven’t injected in twenty years.’
She pauses for a moment. ‘Many psychiatrists think: how do I avoid euthanasia? And if it is still on their plate, they think: how can I get rid of it as quickly as possible? It’s ignorance. And fear. And they feed each other. There are even psychiatrists who think they are not allowed to perform euthanasia themselves.’
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