EUTHANASIA ROW
Doctors who certified woman as autistic so she qualified for lethal injection face jail – as family insist she was just brokenhearted
Tine Nys was 38 years of age when she died in Belgium after a lethal injection in April 2010
A PANEL of three doctors who certified a woman in Belgium as autistic so she could be given a lethal injection are set to go on trial.
The family of Tine Nys say her suffering was not caused by any medical condition but down to a broken heart after a failed relationship.
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They also say she falsely claimed to be autistic to two doctors and a psychiatrist.
Under Belgian law a patient’s suffering has to be “unbearable and incurable” for euthanasia to be permitted.
Tine died, aged 38, in April 2010 after a lethal injection with her sisters and parents at her bedside.
Her family are claiming the law was broken as she was never treated for autism so it could not have been established she was incurable or that she was suffering unbearably.
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The three doctors involved in the case have now been charged with failing to comply with the legal conditions for euthanasia.
The upcoming trial, which will take place in Ghent, is the first of its kind since the country decriminalised euthanasia in 2002.
Tine, from Sint-Niklaas in Flanders, had previously been treated for psychiatric problems 15 years before her death.
Her sisters, Lotte and Sophie, claimed in a TV interview that she had “outgrown that” and was simply feeling rejected after the breakdown of a relationship.
The case has sparked concerns in the UK about introducing the right to die.
Lord Carlile, co-chairman of the parliamentary group Living and Dying Well which is opposed to euthanasia, said the Belgium case highlighted the flaws in the issue.
He said: “What happens in Belgium has been held up by some as an example of good practice.
“This case calls into question all of those claims.”
Dr Wim Distelmans, who chairs Belgium’s regulatory commission, has defended the three unnamed doctors due to face trial.
Speaking on VRT, Belgium’s public broadcaster, he said one of the doctors may need to justify his actions but stated: “The two others only gave advice that is not binding.”
Earlier this year it was revealed that two terminally-ill kids aged nine and 11 had been given lethal injections in Belgium after authorities allowed them to die.
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The cases, which happened in 2016 and 2017, were revealed in a report by the CFCEE – the commission that regulates euthanasia in Belgium, and their ages were confirmed by a Belgian official.
It said that doctors in Belgium had given lethal injections to three children over the two-year period, including a 17-year-old who was suffering from muscular dystrophy.
The nine-year-old suffered from a brain tumour while the 11-year-old had cystic fibrosis.
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