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Swiss hospital to permit suicides

A university hospital in Switzerland on Sunday became the first in Europe to allow assisted suicide on its premises. The University of Lausanne said it would allow patients from Jan.1 to kill themselves in its wards, provided they were incurably ill and of sound mind.

The decision is likely to re-open the already heated but inconclusive debate across Europe about how far doctors and hospitals can go in helping those who are determined to end their lives.

Assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland, but euthanasia is not. In recent years, dozens of patients have travelled to Zurich to die with the help of Dignitas and Exit, two organizations that assist in suicide.

Until now hospitals across Switzerland had refused to allow assisted suicide on site and had denied access to the Swiss voluntary euthanasia society, Exit.

That decision has now been overturned after an "agonizing" two-year debate, the hospital's legal and ethical director, Alberto Crespo said. "We consulted with priests, nurses, doctors and our own clinical committee. It is a disturbing situation we have been examining," he said. "We are not trying to encourage suicide. But at the same time, as a hospital, we have to respect the wishes of someone who wants to die.

"We can't decide for a person what they should do. It is up to the person to decide whether they want to live or not," he said.

None of the staff at the 800-bed hospital, Switzerland's third-largest teaching institution, would be directly involved. "We expect this to be extremely rare," he said.

The hospital apparently reached its conclusion after a patient who had already fixed a date to end his own life was injured in an accident and required hospital treatment, staff said. He refused to be treated, pointing out that he was due to die five days later anyway. He was then too ill to go home to keep the appointment.

While assisting suicide against someone's wishes is a criminal offense, under article 115 of the Swiss code it is permissible if the person wants to die.

The Swiss Medical Association and the National Committee on Ethics have both backed the university's stand. Both say that to respect the wishes and independence of patients, assisted suicide should be permitted in exceptional cases, but it should never become a routine procedure.
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