Steep rise in official Dutch euthanasia

The 2009 annual report of the five regional euthanasia review committees notes that the number of euthanasia cases has been increasing steadily, by about 10% a year, since 2006. The chairman of the committees finds this puzzling. "It is not possible to pinpoint exact causes," he says. The government has commissioned a study into the matter.

This year's report has to be interpreted carefully. Although the committees only found nine cases (out of the 2,636) in which the physician had not heeded the rules for administering euthanasia, it also mentions that one possible reason for the rise in cases is "a growing willingness to notify". In other words (as other studies have shown), an unknown number of Dutch doctors euthanase patients and do not report it.

Another worrying feature of the highly bureaucratised procedure is that the committees cannot cope with the paperwork. "The secretaries are overburdened and, despite working at maximum efficiency, are now forced to focus on their core task - supporting the committees in reviewing notified cases of termination of life - with the result that other tasks are not performed," says the report. BioEdge.org