Medical end-of-life decisions are frequent in minors in Flanders, Belgium. Whereas parents were involved in most end-of-life decisions, the patients themselves were involved much less frequently, even when the ending of their lives was intended. At the time of decision making, patients were often comatose or the physicians deemed them incompetent or too young to be involved.
Sa mère est morte il y a six ans, mais Bernard Bruyère, 67 ans, ingénieur à la retraite, parle encore des conditions de son décès avec souffrance. En 2011, après l'affaire Bonnemaison (ce médecin soupçonné d'avoir provoqué la mort de patients), il avait écrit au courrier des lecteurs du Monde pour témoigner et s'insurger contre la loi Leonetti qu'il juge "inappropriée et indigne".
A 69-year-old woman has been found guilty of killing her former partner who was terminally ill. Joyce Evans strangled Colin Ballinger, 66, last July at her home in New Orleans Walk, Islington, north London.
A grandmother who strangled her terminally ill former partner has been given a suspended jail sentence. Joyce Evans, 69, killed 66-year-old former soldier Colin Ballinger at her home in New Orleans Walk, Islington, north London, last July. She was found guilty of manslaughter at a previous hearing at the Old Bailey. Judge Gerald Gordon said Evans, who has depression, should not have been left to provide the "arduous care" the dying man needed. Evans, who has served what would be equivalent to a 19-month jail sentence on remand, was given a 12-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, coupled with three years' supervision.
Abstract Objectives Potentially life-shortening medical end-of-life practices (end-of-life decisions (ELDs)) remain subject to conceptual vagueness. This study evaluates how physicians label these practices by examining which of their own practices (described according to the precise act, the intention, the presence of an explicit patient request and the self-estimated degree of life shortening) they label as euthanasia or sedation. Methods We conducted a large stratified random sample of death certificates from 2007 (N=6927). The physicians named on the death certificate were approached by means of a postal questionnaire asking about ELDs made in each case and asked to choose the most appropriate label to describe the ELD. Response rate was 58.4%. Results In the vast majority of practices labelled as euthanasia, the self-reported actions of the physicians corresponded with the definition in the Belgian euthanasia legislation; practices labelled as palliative or terminal sedation lac