On Friday, Professor Wim Distelmans, President of the Federal Euthanasia Control and Evaluation Commission, indicated that approximately fifty people were euthanized in Belgium on psychiatric grounds in 2013 and again in 2014.
“At the onset of the depressive phase, patients with manic depression feel physically and morally exhausted. This may lead them to request euthanasia“.
The ULteam, a project created by the VUB and Ugent universities, which seeks to advise the terminally ill, announced that it had received several requests for euthanasia from psychiatric patients who were generally “not very old“.
“Only a small fraction of these persons undergo euthanasia“, explained Professor Distelmans. This “small fraction” comprised 2 to 3% of the 1924 people who were euthanized in Belgium in 2014.
L’avenir.net, 20/03/2015