Inclusion Daily Express -- Swiss Hospital To Allow Assisted Suicides

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Swiss Hospital To Allow Assisted Suicides
By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express
December 21, 2005

LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND--A Swiss hospital announced Monday that on New Year's Day it will become the first medical center in Europe to allow a pro-euthanasia group to help patients kill themselves.

Alberto Crespo, legal and ethical director of the Vaud University Hospital Center, confirmed that the facility would allow the Exit society to assist in the suicides of hospital patients who could not go home after a hospitalization.

Local laws in Switzerland currently allow Exit to help patients with terminal illnesses to kill themselves in their own homes or in designated apartments.

Crespo insisted that the new rule only applies to Swiss patients who enter the hospital for reasons other than to commit suicide, state that they want to die, suffer from incurable diseases or face imminent death, and administer a fatal overdose of barbiturates on their own.

No facility staff would be directly involved in the suicides, Crespo said.

"The purpose of a hospitalization remains therapeutic treatment," he added. "We're not asking our doctors to assist . . . suicide, but we will open our gates to the associations."

According to Reuters news service, the hospital reached its decision after two years of debate and consultation with medical, religious and ethical experts. It was prompted by the case of a man who had already set a date to end his life, but became injured in an accident five days before his scheduled suicide date. He refused hospital treatment, but was too ill to go home and keep that appointment.

Despite their own stated guidelines to the contrary, assisted suicide groups Exit and Dignitas have reportedly been responsible for helping people with disabilities to kill themselves when they did not also have terminal illnesses.

Many disability rights groups have opposed legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia for fear that it would make people who have disabilities more vulnerable.

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