Passive euthanasie

After having been acquainted with the historical development of euthanasia, the following steps for assitance in dying, called passive euthanasia are being discussed.

• 1.

  a) Assistance during dying without speeding up death is the self-evident duty of a doctor.

• 2.

  b) Assistance during death and speeding up the same as an unavoidable result of therapeutical treatment, more or less desired or more or less unavoidable.

• 3.

  c) Assistance through letting the patient die by abandoning all therapeutical means, when these would only lead to a short extension of life time.

No doctor is compelled to take measures to extend life if it is against the will of the patient. He is not even entitled to do so.

A special problem is the abandoning of extended operative treatment, this borders on the so called active enthanasia.

The dying patient always has the same right of treatment by a doctor as well as nursing like all other suffering human beings.

The decision to let a patient die should not result in leaving him by himself and to abandon all nursing as well. Such steps would include letting him lie in dirty linen, not sucking off the mucous secretion from the trachea, refusal to assist during mealtimes, non-assistance during cathetering, and the removal of the dying person to the bathroom, or any other remote corner of the hospital. No dying person should stay without help. Loneliness especially is the greatest pain of a dying patient.