The Swiss clinic where dozens of people have been helped to die, including British patients, has a new problem: the neighbours are complaining that they are fed up with bodies being taken out of the apartment block, where the clinic is located, in the communal lift.
The group Dignitas, which has attracted controversy since it began to offer assisted suicide eight years ago, uses a flat in a building on the outskirts of Zurich. More than 40 British patients have ended their lives in the flat, where a doctor administers a lethal injection after correct legal procedures have been followed.
But residents of the apartment block say they have had enough of the bodies being taken down from the fourth floor in body bags in the lift. One resident, Gloria Sonny (52), told the British Medical Journal: ”Almost every day the bodies of people who have chosen to kill themselves are taken down in the lift. It’s horrid and I’ve had enough.”
Sonny and other neighbours are now collecting signatures from the block’s other residents for action to be taken against the organisation by the local council.
Dignitas’s founder, Ludwig Minelli, has declined to comment but it is not the first time he has faced possible legal action. Local councillors are unhappy that he is attracting many ”suicide tourists” to the city and giving it a bad name, but, under Swiss law, assisted suicide is not illegal.
It emerged last week that another Briton had recently gone to the clinic to commit assisted suicide, which is illegal in the United Kingdom. Paul Bennett (47), who had incurable motor neuron disease, went to Zurich last month where he was helped to die.
His father, Roy Bennett, turned on critics as he spoke of the pain of watching his son’s slow deterioration. Bennett said the family has received more than 200 sympathy cards and tributes from supporters. ”We have received tremendous support and tributes, be it floral or cards of sympathy. Now we want to be allowed to grieve.” — Guardian Unlimited Â