New Netherlands Clinic Makes House Calls for Euthanasia

April 16, 2012

"If the patients can't find death, just take death to the patients" -- that's the thinking behind the new End of Life Clinic that opened in the Netherlands in March. The clinic will sent out mobile "Life End" teams at the request of patients who wish to die under the country's decades-old euthanasia law, WORLD News Service reports. The teams will cater to terminally ill patients whose primary care doctors have refused to provide euthanasia for religious, moral or other reasons. Each Life End unit consists of a doctor, nurse and equipment, and patients can choose a two-dose lethal injection or a drinkable drug mixture. Within its first month of operation, at least 70 patients contacted the clinic; its services are free for now but it hopes insurance companies will eventually pay. Each year in the Netherlands, there are 2,500 to 3,000 cases of euthanasia, representing 2 percent of all deaths in the country.