Doctor sentenced over assisted suicides

Questions have been raised over patients' state of mind when they have taken drugs in cases of assisted suicide Keystone

A retired Swiss psychiatrist has been found guilty of involuntary manslaughter after he helped three mentally ill people commit suicide.

Peter Baumann was given a three-year prison sentence, two years of which are suspended, by Basel criminal court on Friday.

Switzerland has one of the most relaxed laws on assisted suicide in Europe, but calls have been mounting for the practice to be subject to more supervision.

Swiss law tolerates assisted suicide where the act is committed by the patient and in which the helper, who might for example provide a needle of morphine and then leave the room, has no direct interest. Direct active euthanasia – for example injecting a patient with a view to ending their life – remains illegal.

Baumann was accused of intentional killing in addition to several counts of inciting and assisting someone to commit a suicide. The prosecution had demanded seven years, with the defence calling for an acquittal.

The former psychiatrist, who is the head and founder of the assisted suicide association Verein SuizidHilfe Schweiz, was accused of helping three depressed patients take their lives rather than trying to save them.

It was argued that the three people in question were not capable of judgement, and that Baumann had acted out of self-interest and a desire to spread his beliefs.

During the trial Baumann described the accusations as the prosecutor’s “paranoid illusions”.

Three cases

Basel prosecutors started investigating Baumann after he was alleged to have helped a 48-year-old mentally ill man commit suicide in 2001.

In 2002 he helped a 62-year-old woman die. The case was documented in a Swiss television documentary.

A year later an 85-year-old man was found dead in a Lucerne hotel room. The plastic bag used for the suicide was alleged to have Baumann’s fingerprints on it.

The defence had argued that the former psychiatrist had not acted illegally. Lawyers said that he had not acted in his capacity as a doctor, but as an assisted suicide helper.

Baumann, who had his own practice in Zurich, became a member of the assisted suicide group Exit in 1998, where he accompanied 14 suicides. In 2002 he left to form his own association.

Among the most well-known assisted suicide organisations is Zurich-based Dignitas, which is the only Swiss group open to foreigners. This has led to accusations that the city is becoming a death tourism centre.

According to the Swiss National Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics, a government advisory panel, there are 350 cases of assisted suicide – Swiss and foreign – in Switzerland each year.

Tightening controls

The commission has recommended state supervision for assisted suicide organisations.

According to its president, Christoph Rehmann, the Swiss law as it stands offers “relatively little legal hold” to act against ethically questionable cases of assisted suicide.

The panel wants to install compulsory registration for assisted suicide organisations and subject them to guidelines.

These would include the demand that people undergoing assisted suicide were capable of making decisions about their futures. It also wants assisted suicide helpers to provide long-term and intensive forms of care to patients in the run up to death.

This view is largely shared by the Senate, which passed a motion during this summer session aimed at tightening the assisted suicide rules to stop abuses.

If the House of Representatives follows suit, the government will be forced to draw up a new law on the subject.

But Justice Minister Christoph Blocher has already made it clear that it is up to the cantons and communes to apply the law as it stands.

swissinfo

Key facts

Swiss assisted suicide organisations help around 350 people each year.
There are five such organisations, of which Exit and Dignitas are the largest.
Exit has 50,000 members and helped 150 Swiss people die in 2006.
Dignitas has 5,000 members and helped 195 Swiss and foreigners die in 2006.

In brief

Direct active euthanasia is taking specific steps to cause the patient’s death, such as injecting the patient with drugs. This is usually an overdose of painkillers or sleeping pills. This kind of euthanasia is illegal in Switzerland.

Indirect active euthanasia is giving the patient a palliative that could lead to death. This kind of euthanasia is allowed in Switzerland.

Passive euthanasia is usually defined as withdrawing medical treatment with the deliberate intention of causing the patient’s death and is legal in Switzerland.

Assisted suicide is when a doctor provides a patient with the means to end his own life; however, a doctor does not administer it. Assisted suicide is tolerated in Switzerland.

Assisted suicide in Europe

Switzerland: Assisted suicide and passive euthanasia is legal. Active euthanasia is illegal.

Germany and Italy: Assisted suicide is illegal.

France: Passive euthanasia by doctors or relatives will be legal in future. Active euthanasia remains illegal.

Netherlands and Belgium: permit taking the life of a person who wishes to die.

Britain: has the strictest regulations against assisted suicide in Europe. Many Britons come to Switzerland.