Assisted suicide perfomed by a «Right-to-Die»-society in Switzerland: A descriptive analysis of 43 consecutive cases

The Swiss "Right-to-Die"-society EXIT enables assisted suicide by providing terminally ill members with a lethal dosage of barbiturates on request. This practice is tolerated by Swiss legislation. EXIT insists on its assumption that people with serious illness and suffering have the competency to take such a decision. The case of two patients who committed suicide a short time after their release from a psychiatric clinic raised some doubts about the practice of EXIT. The files of all 43 cases of suicide assisted by EXIT between 1992 and 1997 in the region of Basle kept in the Institute of Forensic Medicine were examined for accuracy of the medical data. This sample was compared for age, gender-ratio and prior psychiatric treatment with 425 ordinary suicides in the same region. An attempt was made to assess whether only terminally ill and people with intolerable suffering had been assisted with suicide and what efforts EXIT had made to rule out psychiatric illnesses or poor social conditions as the reason for the wish to die.