IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/hepoli/v90y2009i2-3p181-187.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The medical practice of euthanasia in Belgium and The Netherlands: Legal notification, control and evaluation procedures

Author

Listed:
  • Smets, Tinne
  • Bilsen, Johan
  • Cohen, Joachim
  • Rurup, Mette L.
  • De Keyser, Els
  • Deliens, Luc

Abstract

Objectives To describe and compare current legal procedures for notifying, controlling and evaluating (NCE-procedures) euthanasia in Belgium and the Netherlands, and to discuss the implications for a safe and controllable euthanasia practice.Methods We systematically studied and compared official documents relating to the Belgian and the Dutch NCE-procedures for euthanasia.Results In both countries, physicians are required to notify their cases to a review Committee, stimulating them to safeguard the quality of their euthanasia practice and to make societal control over the practice of euthanasia possible. However, the procedures in both countries differ. The main differences are that the Dutch notification and control procedures are more elaborate and transparent than the Belgian, and that the Belgian procedures are primarily anonymous, whereas the Dutch are not. Societal evaluation is made in both countries through the Committees' summary reports to Parliament.Conclusions Transparent procedures like the Dutch may better facilitate societal control. Informing physicians about the law and the due care requirements for euthanasia, and systematic feedback about their medical actions are both pivotal to achieving efficient societal control and engendering the level of care needed when performing such far-reaching medical acts.

Suggested Citation

  • Smets, Tinne & Bilsen, Johan & Cohen, Joachim & Rurup, Mette L. & De Keyser, Els & Deliens, Luc, 2009. "The medical practice of euthanasia in Belgium and The Netherlands: Legal notification, control and evaluation procedures," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(2-3), pages 181-187, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:90:y:2009:i:2-3:p:181-187
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168-8510(08)00224-8
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bilsen, Johan & Vander Stichele, Robert & Broeckaert, Bert & Mortier, Freddy & Deliens, Luc, 2007. "Changes in medical end-of-life practices during the legalization process of euthanasia in Belgium," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 65(4), pages 803-808, August.
    2. Jansen-van der Weide, Marijke Catharina & Onwuteaka-Philipsen, Bregje Dorien & van der Wal, Gerrit, 2004. "Implementation of the project `Support and Consultation on Euthanasia in The Netherlands' (SCEN)," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 365-373, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sigrid Dierickx & Bregje Onwuteaka-Philipsen & Yolanda Penders & Joachim Cohen & Agnes van der Heide & Milo A. Puhan & Sarah Ziegler & Georg Bosshard & Luc Deliens & Kenneth Chambaere, 2020. "Commonalities and differences in legal euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in three countries: a population-level comparison," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 65(1), pages 65-73, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jansen-van der Weide, Marijke Catharina & Onwuteaka-Philipsen, Bregje Dorien & van der Wal, Gerrit, 2007. "Quality of consultation and the project `Support and Consultation on Euthanasia in the Netherlands' (SCEN)," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 97-106, January.
    2. Pasman, H. Roeline W. & Wolf, Johanna E. Hanssen-de & Hesselink, Berniek A.M. & van der Heide, Agnes & van der Wal, Gerrit & van der Maas, Paul J. & Onwuteaka-Philipsen, Bregje D., 2009. "Policy statements and practice guidelines for medical end-of-life decisions in Dutch health care institutions: Developments in the past decade," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 92(1), pages 79-88, September.
    3. Hanssen-de Wolf, Johanna E. & Pasman, H. Roeline W. & Onwuteaka-Philipsen, Bregje D., 2008. "How do general practitioners assess the criteria for due care for euthanasia in concrete cases?," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(3), pages 316-325, September.
    4. Hesselink, Berniek A.M. & Pasman, H. Roeline W. & van der Wal, Gerrit & van der Maas, Paul J. & van der Heide, Agnes & Onwuteaka-Philipsen, Bregje D., 2010. "Development and dissemination of institutional practice guidelines on medical end-of-life decisions in Dutch health care institutions," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 94(3), pages 230-238, March.
    5. Seale, Clive, 2009. "Hastening death in end-of-life care: A survey of doctors," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(11), pages 1659-1666, December.
    6. Brinkman-Stoppelenburg, Arianne & Vergouwe, Yvonne & van der Heide, Agnes & Onwuteaka-Philipsen, Bregje D., 2014. "Obligatory consultation of an independent physician on euthanasia requests in the Netherlands: What influences the SCEN physicians judgment of the legal requirements of due care?," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 75-81.
    7. Van Wesemael, Yanna & Cohen, Joachim & Bilsen, Johan & Smets, Tinne & Onwuteaka-Philipsen, Bregje & Distelmans, Wim & Deliens, Luc, 2012. "Implementation of a service for physicians’ consultation and information in euthanasia requests in Belgium," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 104(3), pages 272-278.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:90:y:2009:i:2-3:p:181-187. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu or the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/healthpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.