GENEVA: Switzerland's liberal euthanasia laws, which critics say encourage 'death tourism', have come under renewed scrutiny after a study showed that increasing numbers of people seeking assisted suicides do not suffer from a terminal illness.
Researchers from the University of Zurich and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences said many elderly people who have sought assistance to end their lives in Switzerland suffered from chronic and other non-life-threatening conditions.
'Being tired of life and in very poor health are becoming more frequent reasons to seek help to commit suicide than in the past,' said Ms Susanne Fischer, co-author of the review of assisted suicides in Zurich undertaken by two right-to-die groups, Exit and Dignitas. The study was released on Tuesday.
Those groups have sparked international controversy in past years alongside a rise in 'death tourism' to Switzerland.
The study analysed details of 421 people who had assisted suicides between 2001 and 2004 in Zurich - 274 with the help of Dignitas and 147 with Exit - and compared them with details of 149 suicides assisted by Exit from 1990 to 2000.
Among those who had assisted suicides with Dignitas, 79 per cent had terminal illnesses such as cancer, and for Exit 67 per cent were terminally ill.
From 1990 to 2000, some 78 per cent of those who ended their lives with the help of Exit had fatal conditions, it found.
Exit rejected the study's conclusions in a statement saying there was 'no trend' of people justifying their wish to die with 'vague sick-of-life' symptoms.
'The figures are not representative of all Switzerland. Also, the researchers did not have the full diagnosis,' said Mr Bernhard Sutter of Exit's board.
'We help only people with fatal diseases or who are very seriously ill. For the last 12 years, the number suffering from fatal diseases has always been the same, between 65 and 75 per cent. The rest, maybe a third or less, are very ill.'
Many in the latter category have multiple diseases whose cumulative effect caused much pain and suffering, he said.
'We work with doctors who have their medical code and will not issue a prescription (for the lethal drugs) if someone is not in a bad state,' he added.
Assisted suicide has been allowed in Switzerland since the 1940s if performed by a non-physician who has no vested interest in the death.
Both Exit and Dignitas use lethal drugs prescribed by a physician to end the lives of those who seek their help. The suicides take place in peoples' homes or in hotel rooms.
Between 2001 and 2004, 91 per cent of those who died with help from Dignitas were foreigners, mostly from Germany, France and Britain. Only 3 per cent of those turning to Exit came from abroad, reported the researchers.
The two groups have drawn much criticism for what many see as tarnishing the image of Switzerland and turning it into the 'suicide capital' of Europe.
Swiss Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said in July that she would like to put a stop to 'death tourism', after the government announced earlier that month that it would be reviewing the rules for assisted suicide.
Various groups have been piling the pressure on the two organisations.
Medical supervisory boards, for example, are putting greater pressure on the doctors who fill out the prescriptions for the lethal sodium pentobarbital.
According to the law, those seeking assisted suicide must see the doctor at least twice before they enter the 'death room'.
Dr Alois Geiger, told British paper The Times that he was scrupulous about this rule. He took particular care, he said, with patients who were not terminally ill.
'In these situations, we insist on a longer interval between the first and second consultations, an interval of at least eight weeks, so we make sure that the person in question knows what he or she is doing,' The Times quoted him as saying.
But Ms Soraya Wernli, who used to work with Dignitas and left in 2005, said that it did not always work like that.
She told The Times: 'Some foreigners - Germans and English - would come to Zurich in the morning, be taken to the doctor and by mid-afternoon they were dead.' --REUTERS
