The prevention of euthanasia through palliative care: New developments in The Netherlands

Dutch palliative care stands on the eve of important changes. Further devel opment of palliative care has become part of official national health care policy. One of the aims is prevention of euthanasia. Through an expansion a nd improvement of palliative care facilities it is trying to rule out the p ossibility that future requests of euthanasia might be brought about throug h insufficient and inadequate palliative cart. This paper focuses on these new developments in The Netherlands. It first discusses the recent developm ents with regard to euthanasia. Thereafter, it describes the dynamic settin g of palliative care. Finally, the issue of prevention of euthanasia throug h palliative cars is analyzed. With regard to this topic, two questions nee d to he carefully distinguished. On the one hand, there is the factual ques tion of whether a further development of palliative care can prevent euthan asia, on the other hand we have the normative question of whether palliativ e care should be further developed to prevent euthanasia. Both questions ar e analyzed. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.