For the first time since the Dutch Euthanasia law came into force in 2002, the Board of Procurators General decided to launch a criminal investigation into a possibly punishable case of euthanasia,carried out by a physician in a nursing home. The suspect was acting as a physician when she carried out euthanasia on a 74-year old severely demented and incapacitated woman in the spring of 2016. The Regional Euthanasia Review Committees (RTE) had come to a judgement early this year, that the physician of the nursing home “did not act in accordance with the criteria of due diligence” of the termination of life on request and assisted suicide (review procedure) act. The woman had had a will drawn up some years, before her admittance to the nursing home, but this was ambiguous and contradictory. Furthermore, in the opinion of RTE, the physician crossed a line in carrying out the euthanasia. The formal Press Statemnet can be read here.
