A doctor in the Netherlands has justified killing a 74-year-old woman with dementia by adding a sedative to her coffee, then administering a lethal drug, saying it was “for the best”.

Dr Marinou Arends, now retired, has spoken publicly to justify the killing in 2016, when she was working in a nursing home in the Hague. She was cleared of the charge of murder in September 2019.

“Euthanasia turns doctors into killers. This is why Dr Arends could think that killing a dementia patient against her wishes was the ‘best’ thing to do”, said Antonia Tully of SPUC’s Lives Worth Living campaign. “It is especially sickening to think that a doctor would act in such a deceitful way as to trick an extremely vulnerable woman into dying, by lacing her coffee with a fatal dose.”

Family conspiracy

“This is a particularly heartbreaking case as the family was conspiring with the doctor to end this lady’s life. It seems that after being given her coffee, the lady opened her eyes and attempted to pull away from the lethal drug, only to be restrained by her son-in-law”, continued Antonia Tully.

Dr Arends administered the fatal drug on 22 April 2016, in accordance with the wishes of the patient’s husband and daughter, as well as a written wish by the patient prior to her going into a nursing home. Dr Arends claimed that it was a “unanimous” decision on the part of the family and medical team, as well as the woman’s GP and a second opinion doctor. 

“For the best”, says Dr Arends

“I had to take this step”, commented Dr Arends recently. “It was tremendously difficult, but for the best. I believed I was working within the boundaries of the law. I believed that her suffering was awful, and I knew that it could last a long time.”

Approximately 6,000 euthanasia cases take place every year in the Netherlands. This case was assessed by the Dutch Regional Euthanasia Review Committees, which concluded that there was a lack of care.

Following Dr Arend’s acquittal, 200 doctors wrote an open letter in a Dutch newspaper, stating that, according to good practice, they would not perform euthanasia on a dementia patient without their confirmation.

The current status of euthanasia in the Netherlands

The Netherlands was the first country in the world to legalise euthanasia, in 2001, coming into effect in 2002.

In 2019, the Dutch Supreme Court stated that in cases involving a dementia patient, there was no legal requirement to verify the “current death wish” of the patient. The court has since ruled that doctors are allowed euthanise vulnerable dementia patients, even if the patient explicitly expresses a wish not to die, as reported by SPUC in April 2020.