Residents of a block of flats in Zurich who are fed up with the assisted suicide group Dignitas taking dead bodies out of the building in body bags are asking the local council to act.
The controversial clinic that has helped more than 450 people, including more than 30 British people, to end their lives since it opened in 1998 administers its lethal injections in rooms in a residential apartment block on Gloria Street in Zurich’s Wiedikon district.
But people living in the block say they have had enough of the stream of bodies being taken down in the communal lift from the fourth floor to waiting hearses outside.
One resident, Gloria Sonny, 52, said: “If I had known about the clinic before moving in I would have found somewhere else to live. Almost every day the bodies of people who have chosen to kill themselves are taken down in the lift.
“And because the lift is too small for coffins, the bodies are transported in bags, which are then propped up in the corner of the elevator.
“It’s horrid and I’ve had enough,” said Mrs Sonny.
A former resident, who did not wish to be named, said: “I used to get panic attacks as I was confronted with death every day. Sometimes you would meet the people in the hallway before they went upstairs, and a short while later their body would be carried out. I had to endure it for a year before my contract on the flat ran out.”
Mrs Sonny and her neighbour Priscilla Ommerli are now collecting signatures from the block’s other residents for action to be taken against the clinic by the local council.
Dignitas’s director, Ludwig Minelli, said the organisation used a residential apartment block in which to help its clients commit suicide, but he declined to comment on the residents’ complaints.
The organisation operates legally under Swiss law, which allows doctors to assist terminally ill patients who wish to die by providing them with a lethal mixture containing pentobarbital sodium.
Opponents of the clinic have criticised the company and its founder for encouraging “suicide tourism,” as it is the only clinic in the country that accepts foreign patients. It also opened an office in Germany at the end of last year (BMJ 2005;331:984).
The organisation came under investigation last November after helping a German woman to die who had presented them with forged medical documents claiming she was terminally ill (BMJ 2005;331:1160).
Mr Minelli has admitted that he would be willing to accept people who wanted to end their lives even if they were not terminally ill.
He said that for him assisted suicide was “a great chance of getting out of a hopeless situation.”
“Every person in Europe has the right to choose to die, even if they are not terminally ill,” he said.