The number of people in the Netherlands who died by euthanasia increased by 10% last year, figures have shown, as the official watchdog warned doctors to exercise “great caution” in cases where person has a psychiatric illness.
The Netherlands, which has one of the world’s oldest and broadest euthanasia laws, allows doctors to end a person’s life if they are “suffering unbearably, with no prospect of improvement”. They must be diagnosed with a medical condition, but this can include a mental illness or dementia.
Figures released on Monday by the regional euthanasia review committees (RTE) showed that the number of euthanasia deaths rose from 9,068 in 2023 to 9,958 in 2024. While the vast majority of people – 86% – had an advanced physical disease such as cancer, 219 people died for psychiatric reasons, compared with 138 in 2023. In 2010, there were only two such cases.
In a statement, the RTE urged doctors to employ “great caution” with psychiatric conditions, and consult a psychiatric specialist as well as an independent doctor who is part of a network of physicians providing information to colleagues on euthanasia.
“The doctor must always call upon psychiatric expertise for these patients,” it said. “The aim of this is for the doctor to be well informed and to reflect critically on his or her own convictions.”
Six deaths by euthanasia in 2024 were judged by the RTE to have lacked due care, including a doctor who failed to consult a psychiatrist but granted euthanasia to a woman in her 70s who wanted to die because, after a spinal fracture, she could no longer fulfil her obsessive-compulsive need to clean.
Some experts are concerned, especially regarding younger people.
Damiaan Denys, a professor of psychiatry at Amsterdam University Medical Center, said: “Although the absolute numbers are still low, there is a recent, enormous increase in requests and euthanasia performed in patients with psychological complaints, especially in young people under 30.
“This is controversial because it is unclear whether young people at that age can meet the due diligence criteria. How can one, at that age, determine with certainty that a young person with a still-developing brain definitely wants to die, that life is experienced as hopeless and without prospects and that all treatments have already been carried out?”
But NVVE, the Dutch right-to-die society, said the overall figures matched demand. “The figures increase slightly each year,” said the group’s chair, Fransien van ter Beek. “This shows the option of euthanasia is increasingly accepted and used. And just as in other years, the review committees conclude the Netherlands has a very careful euthanasia practice. This is something to be proud of as a country and not to be taken for granted, as many foreign countries show.”
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The Netherlands legalised euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in 2002. According to its current legislation, only a doctor can end someone’s life, and only as long as several conditions are met, including that the patient’s request is voluntary and well considered and there is “no reasonable alternative” to their situation.
Unlike the UK’s assisted dying bill, it does not require people to be near death.
