3,991 patients chose to undergo euthanasia in Belgium last year. The figure is 16.6 per cent higher than the previous year. The figures come from the Federal Euthanasia Control and Evaluation Commission (FCEE). The most notable increase is among people with several conditions at the same time.
4,000 deaths correspond to 3.6 per cent of all deaths in Belgium. The figure is up from 3.1 per cent in 2023. The figure has been rising for some time. Last year, a 15 per cent increase was recorded.
‘Probably we can explain the increase because people are becoming more familiar with euthanasia legislation, but mainly because people do not want to suffer needlessly at the end, because most people who request euthanasia are elderly,’ Professor of Palliative Medicine Wim Distelmans, of the FCEE says.
Most patients who underwent euthanasia were over 70 (72.6 per cent). 43.2 per cent were over 80. Euthanasia in patients younger than 40 years remains rare, with only 1.3 per cent recorded. One case of euthanasia in a minor also occurred. This brings the number of minors who underwent euthanasia, since the scope of the law was expanded in 2014, to 6.
1 in 4 suffering from multiple ailments
In more than half of all cases (54 per cent), patients were suffering from cancer. ‘Polypathology’ was recorded in an increasing number of cases, in more than a quarter of cases (26.8 per cent).
‘This involves elderly people suffering from various ailments, each ailment in itself they could still possibly live with, but when you add everything up, life becomes unbearable. I’m thinking of impaired vision, impaired hearing, need for a walker, incontinence, needing help with eating, drinking, washing and dressing,’ says Prof Distelmans.
‘For many people, this is just too much. They don't want to live anymore.’
The third most common condition causing patients to request euthanasia involves diseases of the nervous system, such as ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) for example. Cognitive disorders, such as Alzheimer's Disease, are rarer as a trigger, representing 1.4 per cent of patients. And euthanasia for psychiatric disorders is also limited to 1.4 per cent.
In the register doctors also report whether euthanasia was motivated by physical suffering, psychological suffering, or both. In 82.3 per cent of cases doctors reported both physical and psychological suffering (up from 76.2 per cent in 2023). So, a combination is increasingly being reported.
In 15.8 per cent, only physical suffering was identified. The remaining 1.9 per cent involved only psychological suffering (which can also mean that the pain of an illness is controlled by medication, but the patient suffers mentally from other consequences of the illness).
GPs become more important
Just over half of all patients chose to die at home (50.4 per cent), a slight increase. Over 30 per cent died in hospitals (a slight decrease), and 17.6 per cent in residential care homes.
‘When you give people the choice about where they prefer to die, it is obviously at home. Apparently, more and more consideration is being given to that,’ says Prof Distelmans. ‘That also means that the role of GPs will become more and more important.’ GPs also remain the main points of contact for patients requesting euthanasia, the figures show.
A country divided
The majority of registration documents were in Dutch, as in previous years. While that only says something about the language of the doctor, the difference is striking compared to French. Less than a quarter of all the documents were in French, and that is even less than the previous year. The commission has no explaination for this decline.
A message for France
People living abroad can also request euthanasia in Belgium, and as in the previous year, it was mostly people from France who did so. 120 patients did not live in Belgium, 106 hailed from France. ‘It is an argument suggesting France should also legislate in favour of euthanasia as soon as possible,’ Prof Distelmans concludes.