Marc van Hoey insists he did nothing wrong in euthanising a healthy woman who was suicidal over the sudden death of her daughter.
He is currently under investigation for one of them.
As the horrifying case of three doctors in Belgium who are being prosecuted for diagnosing a woman with autism so that she could be euthanised continues to make headlines, another Belgian doctor has admitted that he has personally killed 140 patients.
Dr Death
Marc van Hoey, a palliative care physician and president of Right To Die Flanders, spoke about the number of deaths he has caused or facilitated in an interview with the Daily Mail's Ian Burrell.
Mr Burrell asked how many people he has personally killed since Belgium made euthanasia legal in 2002.
"Maybe 140," he concludes after a quick calculation, adding that he has advised perhaps another 500 on euthanasia procedures. ‘But they did not all go through with it and die, of course."
"She's had it".
Dr van Hoey, who insists he is not a "terrible sadist", cannot currently carry out euthanasia, as he is under investigation by police over the death of an eighty-five year old woman in 2015. Simona de Moor was fit and healthy, but after her beloved daughter died, she immediately decided she wanted euthanasia, to escape from the unbearable grief. Three months later, while an Australian television crew filmed, Dr van Hoey gave her a glass of lethal syrup to drink, and within five minutes she was dead.
In the documentary, Dr van Hoey said he did not need to consult a psychiatrist (as is supposed to happen when death is not imminent) about Ms de Moor because of his own expertise. "It’s not, she wants to die because she’s depressed," he said. "She wants to die because she’s had it. See the difference?"
He insists he did nothing wrong. "It is like the Sword of Damocles hanging over me," he said. "It’s very worrying but my conscience is clear." (Interestingly, Care not Killing points out that Archbishop Justin Welby invoked the same image when raising concerns about the consequences Lord Falconer's assisted suicide bill would have for the vulnerable.)
Very few doctors killing lots of people
The number of people Dr van Hoey has killed is higher even than that of Jack Kevorkian, an American euthanasia advocate who claimed to have assisted the suicide of 130 people, before being imprisoned for second degree murder.
Individual doctors being responsible for a large number of deaths seems to be a feature of euthanasia regimes. Lieve Thienpont, the psychiatrist responsible for diagnosing Tine Nys with autism, was accused by nine fellow psychiatrists of being responsible for "probably close to 50%" of euthanasia cases for psychiatric disorders. In Oregon, one quarter (62/271) of all lethal prescriptions in the first decade of legalisation were provided by just three doctors.
Killing children
Almost 15,000 people have been killed since Belgium legalised euthanasia in 2013. Three children are known to have been given lethal injections since the law was changed to permit the euthanasia of minors in 2014. A nine-year-old with a brain tumour and an 11-year-old with cystic fibrosis became the first people under 12 to be legally euthanised anywhere in the world.
News in brief: