Euthanasia, Belgian Style

As you know, euthanasia has become in vogue. In Canada, led by Fidel’s bastard son, the much vaunted national health service has found a way to cut down on medical costs. Let the most hopeless and difficult cases kill themselves. And they call it health care.

And then there is the case of one Shanti De Corte, a young Flemish woman who killed herself a few months ago because her psychiatrists were not able to treat her depression. The doctors who could not treat her signed on to her suicide.

After all, she wanted to die. She did not want any more treatment. Given the quality of the treatment, one is not that surprised. At a time when we have been debating the question of involuntary psychiatric commitment, in the case of potentially dangerous psychotics, ought we perhaps also to ask whether we should commit seriously depressed and suicidal individuals involuntarily? 

Rick Moran raises the salient question, (via Maggie’s Farm). I also refer you to a comprehensive article from the Belgian press. Link here.

When Shanti was first hospitalized, for having been of the victims of a terrorist bombing at the Brussels airport in 2016, she was given eleven different anti-depressants. One remarks that her psychiatrists concluded that she had had serious mental health issues before the attack.

The Belgian press described her first hospitalization, following the terrorist attack:

And if she was not physically injured, the young Flemish woman came out of the attack traumatized, as confirmed by the school psychologist who took care of the students  :

"There are some students who react worse than others to traumatic events. And having interviewed her twice, I can tell you that Shanti De Corte was one of these fragile students. For me it's Clearly, she already had serious psychological problems before the attack. So I referred her to psychiatry."

A few weeks after March 22, Shanti was hospitalized in a psychiatric facility in Antwerp. A place she knows well since she has already been there several times before the attacks. Shanti De Corte receives treatment with antidepressants there. On her Facebook wall, which she uses as a diary, Shanti talks about this medication several times:

"I get multiple meds for breakfast. And up to 11 antidepressants a day. I couldn't live without them."

"With all the drugs I'm taking, I feel like a ghost who doesn't feel anything anymore. Maybe there were other solutions than drugs."

For his part Moran also emphasizes the use of anti-depressants. He suggests that Shanti suffered from grossly incompetent mistreatment:

“Up to 11 antidepressants a day”? I have never heard of a patient being on 11 antidepressants at a time. In fact, Miss De Corte’s entire experience with mental health professionals in Belgium suggests incompetence and negligence.

And in the end, they just gave up on her.

He asks about medical incompetence. After all, how much is a patient influenced by her doctor’s attitude toward her case? What if the doctor loses all hope? Is this a motive for suicide? What would have happened if the physicians had refused to allow her this extreme treatment?

What happens if a doctor’s incompetence contributes to the “medically futile condition”? There is no way that 11 antidepressants didn’t affect her mental health in ways that could have easily contributed to her depression. And at least one doctor agrees with that.

Of course, other Belgian physicians disputed the prescribed euthanasia:

Antwerp prosecutors began an investigation after receiving complaints from a doctor at the UZC Brugman academic clinical hospital in Brussels. He said the decision to euthanize Shanti “was made prematurely.”

The Federal Commission for the Control and Evaluation of Euthanasia in Belgium didn’t see any problems with the case, but neurologist Paul Deltenre said that there were still different avenues of care and treatment available to Shanti that were not tried.

Evidently, antidepressant medications are not the only treatments. No mention here of the cognitive and other forms of talk therapy that might have been used.

Moran consider the euthanasia a medical mistake, a way to avoid dealing  with a difficult patient:

Miss De Corte’s condition was far from hopeless. To allow a 23-year-old woman to take the irretrievable step of ending her own life is irresponsible, especially when there are legitimate questions about the quality of care she received.