31-5-2006
Starting the procedure
Reporting euthanasia or assisted suicide is crucial if physicians are successfully to claim immunity from prosecution. But it is also of vital importance in enabling them to account for their actions.
A doctor who has performed euthanasia or helped a patient to commit suicide must inform the municipal pathologist that there has been a death from unnatural causes. The pathologist performs an external examination and collects and verifies the necessary documents. He then contacts the public prosecutor.
If there are no irregularities, the public prosecutor will give permission for the body to be released for burial or cremation. The pathologist then forwards the documents – the attending physician’s report, the independent physician’s report, the advance directive if one has been drawn up, the medical records and/or letters from specialists – to the relevant regional review committee.
