A physically healthy Dutch woman who suffers from depression and other mental health difficulties says she is scheduled to be euthanized today on her 34th birthday.
Jolanda Fun, who has prepared invitations to her own funeral in advance, told the Sunday Times earlier this month that she hopes to become the last person in the Netherlands to receive a doctor-assisted death for psychiatric problems.
Figures show that 138 people suffering from mental health problems were euthanized in 2023, representing 1.5 percent of euthanasia cases in the Netherlands that year.
Fun told the British newspaper that he has long suffered from an eating disorder, depression, autism and mild learning difficulties, and would prefer his life to end peacefully rather than attempting suicide.
Despite having his family, friends and a small dog, he said life is a constant pain.
Jolanda Fun, a physically healthy Dutch woman who suffers from depression and other mental health problems, will be euthanized today on her 34th birthday.
Social situations resulted in “darkness, overstimulation, chaos in my head, loneliness,” she said. Most of the time I feel really bad. Sad, depressed, gloomy. People don’t see it, because that’s the mask I put on and that’s what you learn to do in life.’
Fun took to Facebook last year to say she had been looking for a psychiatrist “willing to take the euthanasia journey” with her.
A year earlier, he said, he had registered with the Expertisecentrum Euthanasie (Expert Center for Euthanasia) in the Netherlands.
‘At the beginning of this year I had my first conversation (with the center) and […] It was also clear to them that I have tried everything in terms of therapies and medications and therefore this does not make sense to me.
“Only now there’s another conversation and that could take at least a year and a half,” he continued. ‘I have no idea how to get through this moment and I’m actually kind of at the end. I’m tired of fighting and I can’t take it anymore.’
His Facebook post was made on June 9, 2023. Less than a year later, on April 14, 2024, The Sunday Times published his interview with Fun in which he said that he had set his date: April 25, in what would be his 34th birthday. .
In her conversation with the newspaper, she spoke more about her decision to, what she called, “get out of life.”
Fun took to Facebook last year to say she had been looking for a psychiatrist “willing to take the euthanasia journey” with her.
“My father is sick, my mother is sick, my parents are fighting to stay alive and I want out of life,” he said.
‘That’s a little strange. But when I was seven years old I asked my mother if, if she jumped from a viaduct, I would be dead. I’ve been struggling with this my whole life.’
Fun said he had sought therapy many times, but decided euthanasia was his preferred course of action two years ago after speaking with a council member.
They told him that in the Netherlands the laws allowed assisted dying for psychiatric reasons, something that is increasingly common in the country.
However, “the rules are very strict,” he told the publication.
‘You don’t simply obtain euthanasia, there is a whole path… But it is death in a dignified way: painless, carried out by a doctor. Your loved ones can be there.”
What’s more, he said, “no one discovers you in a horrible state, or you don’t end up having bad luck and worse than before.”
The geriatrician worked at the End-of-Life Clinic (Levenseindekliniek) in The Hague, now known as the Euthanasia Expertise Centre.
The Netherlands is one of only three EU countries where the practice of assisted dying is legal, and human rights groups argue that it gives people battling terminal or disabling illnesses the right to end their suffering. human form.
The data revealed that 8,720 people in the Netherlands ended their lives through euthanasia in 2022, an increase of 14 percent from the previous year.
This figure increased again in 2023 to 9,068, and the number of reported cases quadrupled between 2005 and 2023.
The 2022 figure represented 5.1 percent of all deaths in the country, but the real figure could be much higher as research suggests around 20 percent of euthanasia deaths go unreported, according to media Dutch.
No scientific research has been carried out to establish a reason for the dramatic increase in people choosing euthanasia, according to the Netherlands’ Regional Monitoring Committees (RTE) that track deaths.
Under Dutch law, a person who wishes to end their life for mental health reasons must meet six conditions.
They must be mentally competent, have a long-standing desire for euthanasia, the decision must be made of their own free will, they must have been informed of all alternative treatments and there can be no other reasonable solution.
Your eligibility to end your life must also be confirmed by independent doctors and can only be carried out under very specific guidelines.
The vast majority of euthanasia cases are granted to people over sixty years of age with terminal illnesses.
However, Sisco van Veen, a psychiatrist and end-of-life ethics researcher at Amsterdam University Medical Centre, told The Sunday Times that the rising trend of euthanasia cases for mental health reasons is “undeniable.” and “ascending.”
According to The Sunday Times, approximately one in ten requests for euthanasia on psychiatric grounds are carried out.
Assisted dying laws in the Netherlands came under the spotlight earlier this year in a case similar to that of Jolanda Fun.
Zoraya ter Beek, who lives in a small town in the Netherlands, said in April that she will be “released” early next month. She will be sacrificed on the couch in her house with her boyfriend next to her. The free press reported.
Zoraya ter Beek, (pictured), who lives in a small town in the Netherlands, suffers from depression, autism and borderline personality disorder. She has decided to end her life by euthanasia after a psychiatrist told her “there is nothing more we can do for you” and that she will “never get better.”
Ter Beek decided he wanted to die after a psychiatrist told him “there is nothing more we can do for you” and that “you will never get better.”
It is understood that a doctor will give you a sedative before giving you a medication that will stop your heart.
When he was just 22 years old, ter Beek opted to get a do-not-resuscitate badge, something older people often wear.
Now, after doctors reportedly told her there was nothing more they could do to help improve her mental health, she decided she was tired of living.
The 28-year-old told the newspaper that she has always been “very clear that if it doesn’t improve, I can’t continue with this.”
She has decided not to hold a funeral and will be cremated. Her 40-year-old boyfriend, whom she is in love with, will scatter her ashes in “a nice place in the woods” they have chosen together.
“I don’t see it as my soul leaving, but rather as myself being released from life,” she said of her expected death, admitting: “I’m a little afraid of dying, because it’s the ultimate in the unknown.” .
‘We don’t really know what’s next, or is there nothing? That’s the scary part.’
Ter Beek has carefully planned his “release”, telling the newspaper that he will “sit on the sofa in the living room” and “there will be no music”.
The latest figures from the Regional Monitoring Committees (RTE) of the Netherlands show that 8,720 people ended their lives by euthanasia in 2022, an increase of 14 percent on the previous year.
He explained that during euthanasia the “doctor really takes his time” and will first try to “calm the nerves and create a gentle atmosphere.”
The doctor will then ask her if she is ready, according to ter Beek, and she will “take my place on the couch.”
The doctor will ask “one more time” if ter Beek wants to carry out his euthanasia, before starting the procedure and wishes him “a good trip.”
Ter Beek added: ‘Or, in my case, a good nap, because I hate it when people say, ‘Have a good trip.’ I’m not going anywhere.’
For confidential assistance, call Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritans branch, see www.samaritans.org for details