The Dignitas clinic is in Forch, near Zurich, Switzerland, and therefore operates under Swiss law, which, since 1941, has permitted assisted suicide provided it is done for altruistic reasons. It can be doctor-assisted hastened death, or non-doctor. Assisted suicide for the mentally ill is legal but rare due to the difficulty in accurate diagnosis.
It is always reported to the police, and there are fees involved. Travel and hotels are of course the responsibility of the person asking for help.
Only the states of Oregon, Washington and Montana the Netherlands, and Belgium permit physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill, competent adults, but it is for residents only, and there are strict guidelines.
To find out more about Dignitas in your language, visit Dignitas listing on Google and click “Translate this page”.
Or to translate Dignitas website into other languages visit either Google translation tool or Babel Fish Translator. Then choose your language (example: German to English) and enter “www.dignitas.ch” for the website address you want translated.
How to contact Dignitas in Switzerland.
Dignitas must be fully informed in advance of a person’s wishes, circumstances, and agree to help. It is not a ‘walk-in’ clinic.
Email: dignitas@dignitas.ch
Website: www.dignitas.ch
Mailing address: Postfach 9 – CH 8127 Forch, Switzerland
Telefon: +41-44-980 44 59
Footnote:
On 20 January 2006, DIGNITAS SAID:
“At the time being, we are not able to help mentally ill people because the authorities do declare to withdraw doctor licences if a doctor will write a prescription for mentally ill people. DIGNITAS has therefore introduced legal steps in order to clarify the situation by the Swiss Supreme Court or, if the latter will not render a positive decision, by the European Court on Human Rights at Strasbourg.â€
Many thanks for contact details for Dignitas – was searching for them and dfound your “blog”. Very helpful, as we are oldish, and trying to plan our future.
Do keep up the good work. We are active supporters of te Lib Dems attempts in the UK for (eventually) similar legislation, and until then some improvements on the present ban.
thanks, this was very useful, was hard to find proper info about it, which wasnt overly `”biased”.am very much in support of dignitas being able to help the mentally ill or depressed.
many thanks
I too think Dignitas should have the freedom to help mentally depressed patients with the same freedom they have to help those with physical diseases.
Ending ones life should be a personnal decision without any government interference. Euthanasia should be supported and death trauma and painfree.
Sadly, with the best intentions, the legitimisation of your practice would facilitate the murder of the infirm who are least in a position to resist it. Every one is entitled to end his/her life. It is important that it is difficult to do so because there is only one shot. The potential for abuse and murder in your scheme is not tolerable. As such your practice is with the best intentions is of no value. To continue is cynical and irresponsible. We all die. God has customised your death according to your life. Don’t settle for less.
Thanks for letting us know what “God’s” plan is for us all, Paul.
Doctors routinely ease patients pointless, prolonged suffering with palliative drug dosages that will kill them. They do this without the patient’s request. If however, the patient—in full control of his/her mental faculties and undersatnding fully the details of their prognosis—actually asks for this option, the full weight of the religion/guilt-based/pseudo-psychiatric/legal machinery comes to bear on making their short lives even more unbearable. I know this from first-hand experience.
One day, I hope, we can evolve and mature enough to leave behind all the pitiful nonsense of religion and get to grips with the fact that life is what we experience now, between the womb and the tomb. We owe it to one another to make it a positive experience. Projections of an “afterlife” are just excuses for not dealing with things.
What goes with that is building our intelligence and critical faculties as beings sufficiently to have legal systems etc., that can live up to the moral and ethical demands of such choices.
Paul’s comment above makes me glad to be an atheist.
He says everyone has the right to end his/her life. It is indeed difficult to do so without making a mess of it, and not succeeding;-and that is why relying on a “do-it-yourself” “one-shot” may risk brain-damage ,vegetative state, or paralysis, without success in achieving death. As a Doctor I have seen “natural” haphazard dying, and it stinks.
That is precisely why the process should be made easy and reliable once the decision has been responsibly made.
Even if there was a God, which there isn’t, it is so arrogant to claim to speak for him and to know his alleged purpose.
Please leave God out of human affairs and confine him to his kennel in the sky.
Dr. (Med) Reg Le Sueur.
“!Even if there was a God, which there isn’t, it is so arrogant to claim to speak for him and to know his alleged purpose.”
It is also arrogant to dismiss the existence of God, when you know you cannot prove that God does not exist.
ECRILEY
“This country would never believe or allow anything like assisted suicide. Most of you other countries are freaking nuts!!!”
If you had read the whole story you would have seen that the state of Oregon also permits physician-assisited suicide. So much for believing this country would never allow anything like this..
ECRILEY, You have obviously never witnessed the pain of mental illness ( of either the patient or that of their loved ones). They often endure years and years of PAIN from ineffective medication, often being used as guinea pigs when new drugs come on the market and their funds milked dry by years of psychiatric ‘help’ … so little is available and known on these illnesses. What scares me most is that you say you are in the medical field too and yet you speak in terms of “normal people” and then “freaking nuts”… !! Scary… and so judgemental… I say give them the choice to end their person hell, and not judge them on it. Every day you make a choices on how to live and how to die in everything you do, this is just a lot more “in your face”.
“It’s the craziest thing I ever heard of.”
ECRILEY:
Could you kindly elaborate on your statement above? I’d be interested in your findings and in knowing what exactly is crazy about a paralyzed person wanting suicide by any means.
As an able-bodied, independent person yourself, what insight and wisdom into paralysis do you usually share with victims to help them better appreciate their situation and not be so crazy?
There might be circumstances where it is unbearable the pain or depression, and it does not make sense to continue living, but nobody other than God is allowed to decide when to end the life of somebody, even for self.
The life is a gift that we got from God, and if we are meant to suffer, then that is the cross that we must carry to comply with the divine plan.
It is a mystery why things have to be like this, or our limited minds can not understand it now, but I am sure that God himself is also sad every time that he sees us suffering, everything has a reason to be.
I have learned a lot from the example of those that have gone through problems or pain in their lives and have lived until the end of the road is shown naturally.
Do not try to play God, it is wrong to take your own life, there are many other alternatives to consider and people willing to help you.
I have contacted this organisation and I hope they can help me. I am 45 and quite healthy, but I realize that life really is not so special if you have not achieved your dreams. And I have not acheived mine so I see no reason to live further. I think it is a nice way to die instead of waiting and suffering for years and years praying to God which does not exist for help which will never come. Better than old age. Better than disabilities. Better than poverty. Better than anything. Dying is not bad. Everyone does it eventually.
[…] press the switch. Assisted suicide in a safe, comforting and legitimate environment such as that at Dignitas is legal in Switzerland and many believe that it should be legalised in the […]
I have just watched Craig Ewerts assisted suicide on sky tv.
taking religion out of the equasion and adding the human rights element, i was really bowled over by what i saw.
I watched my Beloved father die a painful, drawn out, undignified, degenerative not to metion terminal illness.
his last days he begged for his life to end as he could not bare the torture any longer.
where were his human rights?
a simple overdose of morphine would have been his saviour and ours too.
a man turned to fragments of what he was, and the lasting memories of suffering and torment is what we were left with.
The last words he said to me was “tell them to help me, i can’t bare it anymore”
A strapping 15 stone, 6 foot 4inch defender of his family, loyal to his friends and a man amongst the best men that ever walked this earth, reduced to a 5 stone shrivelled pleading frightened skeleton.
and who gave him the fundamental right to make a choice for himself? not harming anyone in the process, rather relieving himself and his family from the unforgiving barely living torture.
I for one feel i have the right to make a choice for myself.
if my father had the opportunity to push a button to end his suffering, he would have done so, and only the people who enjoy watching someone in agony would have opposed his descision.
It’s time to get to grips with reality, how many attempted suicides end with devastating concequences for both the person and the families who are left with the broken pieces of mind and body?
every human being has a human right to do with their body as they see fit, as long as he/ she imposes no harm to another without their consent.
I would never want to suffer as my father did, nor would i want my family to watch me suffer, i want the right to choose without politics interfering.
The thought that mentally ill (depressed people, specifically) who are treatable could kill themselves is insane, itself. Why kill yourself if you can get better? Duh. Seems like a no-brainer to me.
Sadly mentally unbalanced or depressed people cannot make rational descisions, and it is easier for them to Opt out, rather than to face the long road to recovery.
this is why i am opposed to certain aspects of assisted suicide, and there are grey area’s which need to be carefully thought through.
these people are the ones most likely to try suicide and more often than not it fails, as they have not thought through the nesessary lethal dosage of pills, or the right amout of poison etc, because they are so messed up mentally.
We in this country have a National Health Service which is on the decline, mental patience are being sent home or discharged through lack of government funding, they are not cured, not mentally stable and most certainly not able to cope with everyday stress, these are the poor people who are most likely to try to kill themselves or as has happened most recently here in the UK, killed someone else.
A mentally ill or depressive person cannot make rational judgements, therefore cannot make a life ending descision either.
this is why assisted suicide needs to be confined to the terminally ill or the physically paralised in order to end their pain and suffering on a physical level and not a mental one.
I am 75% Pro assisted suicide so long as guidelines are put in place to protect those who are mentally vulnerable.
Some people have chronic mental illness that is crippling,
What if you have been bullied your whole life rejected, abandoned and your heridetary condition escalated to the point of no return,
What am I supposed to live like a sedated Zombie.
what quality of life is this? don’t give me your psychological babble/
don’t give me the same song and dance You deserve to live . Things will get better to me.
I am tired I just want to go in peace.
and I want the right to die with dignity.
Makepeace,
What you have written about yourself describes my own feelings exactly. When I was younger and fit I could survive the bullying and rejection, but now I cannot.
Who gave these religious morons the right to dictate to me how I should die?
Then there are the ignorant fools who say all psychological conditions can be cured. They can’t. All I get is a 20 minute visit
to a bored novice psychiatrist who makes a few notes and says come back in 3 months.
All I have to look forward to is getting older, more incapacitated, and finally dieing alone in a dreary hospital bed surrounded by uncaring NHS ‘nurses’
But even dignitas is not allowed to help people with psychological problems any more.
all for the people who do not think assisted suicide is right obviously are not in the position to feel the need. do not judge others – you may think differently in their position.
as for God – who knows whether he exists. again, it is opinion do not judge others for their opinions.
In reply to serenity, i do not think assisted suicide is right. I am in a position to feel the need, but i am a fighter!!! I am so mentally messed up that 2 psychiatrists and 2 counsellers have given up on me. I refuse to take tablets that will drug me up and continue to fight for help. I have 2 life threatening illnesses that lay me out for days, still i will not give in.
Ive been bullied and rejected all my life, now i do not care what others say or do. My life is too precious .
Thank God Dignitas would not help me of on one of my ‘bad’ days, when i want to stay under my duvet and hope the world will go away.
I have worked in a hospice and lost relatives to cancer (i’m fighting it myself, tooth n nail) but i will go when God decides.
My heart truely goes out to mpaschal, i am 50, like her i have not achieved my dreams..if you end it, you never will!!!
I haven’t mentioned that i am a spiritualist medium and know there is an afterlife waiting for me, i do not fear death or how i’m going to die , i’m just in no hurry to leave this world!!
Suicide is selfish, my own daughter attempted it last May. 3 days i watched the hospital staff fight to save her liver. She is 27 and couldn’t live without the man who rejected her..i am sure she would have gone off to Switzerland if she’d had the money and that is the type of thing that worries me. My sister recently watched the ‘Short stay in Switzerland’ and is very excited about the idea, she asked me to go with her..my reply,” if that’s what you want to do you go alone, i’m not sitting with her and watching her do something i do not believe in and facing prosecution when i arrive home”..not forgetting that i have mental issues and that would probibly, totally push me over the edge. All so very selfish. Not a thought left for the family/loved ones left behind…my mum is 84, widowed, has heart problems, she should not have to face burying her daughter because some programme has put ideas into her head.
I shall second that, i firmly believe in being able to make this informed choice myself. I am a below 40 years old lady that is facing a life not only dependant upon others, but also a life wracked in pain! Assisted suicide is just one option myself and my family have discussed in great depth. I’m certainly not going to spend the next 50+ years wracked in immense pain! I have strong feelings on this issue and as such should legally have the right to make this choice myself. In my country we would never let an animal suffer in this way, so why do we let humans??? In my country adequate pain relief comes at a cost to the individual (drugged up all the time, with no real respite from the pain in question), how can this be ok? I totally understand what is involved in this process as i have researched it for years now, I very firmly belive every country should offer this service & provided it is regulated thoroughly there are no issues. You’ll always have ‘preachers’ but please remember it is YOUR life that matters not someone elses & YOU have the right to choose when that time ends.
I see both sides. I am a christian and believe in the bible and everything (alright not everything) God preaches but I also believe in the separation of church and state and that is what takes precedence in these kinds of matters.
It CANNOT be a matter of what is morally right or wrong because there is no such thing as a universal “moral opinion”. There will always be people who agree or disagree with varying degrees of grey.
This HAS to be an issue of what is defined under “unalienable rights” (for those of us in America). Does a person have the right to end there own life? I say if we have to right to end someone else’s life without their consent (death penalty) then we should have the right to end our own.
I take the same stance on issues like abortion, I wouldn’t do it but there is no way I would ever deny someone the opportunity to do what they will with their own body.
(Of course I will say to always expand your view of the problem. Think about and discuss these kinds of things with friends and family)
Life is only beautiful, when we are able to realize that after a long storm, a cloudy day, a depressing winter… a sunny and bright day,
a hot summer is waiting for us as long as we are alive…
Life is suffering, even the healthiest, smartest, wealthiest people on earth suffer, we all suffer, from birth until end.
I have witnessed two people dying of a painful cancer, and they did not want to die, I always wonder why? while there are others that easily give up life. The bottom line is that most of you really have the chance to end your life right now by any means you may choose, BUT the question is: Can you wait a little longer? maybe tomorrow you will feel better, or get the job you have been waiting for, or find somebody to love you for who you are, or have joy by giving love and hope instead of receiving it…
Oh, Life is beautiful, just like beauty is in the eyes of the beholder…Life is a dual complexity, a yin yang, our hearts are not truthful, our emotions deceive us, I can be sad now and happy later, full of despair/full of hope, etc.
Let’s hope for a tomorrow free of shame, pain emotional/physical, …it is possible… concentrate on reading, thinking, hearing the stories of hope and healing.
I am in my 40s, single mom, unemployed professional, … etc but I still hope for a better tomorrow.
Life is like a Red Rose with a sweet smell, beautiful red contrasting the green, but full of painful thorns.
Friends give yourself another chance, daily…think only of anything pure, loving, dignified, that’s what all of you are.
My love and wishes for healing, strength, clarity of mind, hope…
I just read through these posts and my strongest feeling is that we must leave the decision on how and when to die up to the individual. All of you above expressed a variety of opinions and beliefs. It is your right to have them, but PLEASE do not impose your beliefs on anyone else.
If you are a religious fanatic, then go ahead and wait for your god. Leave the rest of us alone!!!
My opinion is that all of our countries are over-dominated by crazy religious fairy tales and some of the laws reflect this. There is no longer a separation of church and state in the US.
If you are physically OR mentally suffering, there should be an easy, painless method to end your life whenever you see fit.
I want to help create a society where there is a priority to alleviate suffering as per the individual’s desire.
There is no “clinic” in Forch, Switzerland. as one who had paid my dues in June and went there at the end of August, I found there to be no location, but Mr. Minelli’s house. and I was told to “go home” EVEN after I’d paid my funeral and officials expenses towards my death. I’ve asked for my full money’s back but 3000 chf (about 3000 USD) is for “administrative expenses”….baloney. They never did anything for me, never allowing me to see a doctor, never read my letter about being in Zurich the end of August, only asked for more money.
Their office staff is pathetic.
The person who thinks he/she can plan the time of their death, think again. The only way to get anything done right is to do it yourself.
Caveat emptor
[…] There are currently only a small number of places where the law allows assisted suicide, including Oregon, Washington, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. Due to this over 100 British terminally ill patients have ended their lives at the Dignitas Clinic in Switzerland. […]
[…] at ending your life, there isn’t much anyone can do. In the case of a terminally ill person, Dignitas is still available; for how long no one really knows.  And you still have to fund your fares and […]
Quite simply it is a matter of free choice. There is only a problem because in society life is considered sacred and death is a big unknown – this is a collective belief not universally individual. I would not want to disabuse anyone of his or her opinion. I would just like to find a way to have some help executing my own. I would like to donate all my organs to people who want to live.
My partner is suffering from chronic pancreatitis for over 15 years that involves extreme pain and needing to take very strong painkillers and morphine. He has contacted dignitas, who, after a few weeks time, finally agreed in assisting his suicide. I am devastated, and I don’t know how to behave now, since I don’t want him to go, but it seems that this is the only way out for him instead of constant pain and suffering.
I believe in freedom and choice – In every aspect of the life. That includes how we live and how we die.
Most times we can not completely chose how or when we live, but let us be able to chose when, how we die please….
I hope this right can be preserved and can be respected and excersied.
I watched the chris exit on tv twice in the last week, it was so powerfull the first time I needed to see it again to digest all the feelings I got watching him leave.
I am a very spiritual person brought up catholic and I believe in God and always believed the theory of play the hand God dealt you or else ? (damnation?).
But recently I watched my younger brother become sick after his wife of 20 yrs passed away and his heartache was all consuming. I watched for months as I thought he was taking his meds and never once thought he wouldn’t make it, but after he passed we found his meds that would of saved him stashed away near his bed. It hurt so much not to have told him how much he meaned to me before he left and that I would miss him as long as I live.
Seeing chris leave with his wife beside him the second time was more humane in my eyes than so many botched tries by sick pts where they only end up worse off. Anyone can find a heroin dealer and O.D. in the streets in secret, drink themselves to death or like so many put a gun to their head and leave one heck of a mess for a loved one to see (and remember).
I am not God and I am not anyones judge nor am I supposed to be by the bibles standard, (depending on which translation you read, unlike the hate version) and seeing someone like Reagan suffer for so long was his payment due before leaving in my opinion (he was pure evil to me), but like myself who lives with 15 pills a day to just get out of bed I am ok with a persons choice to say to God- ok I got a bum hand and this is me folding and leaving the game. Thats the feeling I got from chris the second time, he folded a crappy hand before he became a human slug living on just enough morphine to be aware of how much pain you in but not enough to get rid of it, I was a corpsman in a hospital that saw those pts on morphine day by day having their body end up in a urine bag until you expire, if I had that cancer I would take the larger dose of morphine, and thats my opinion. I can say I was proud to serve those dying pts in their last days and hope the people I love get the same loving care when they are sick and dying no matter what they choose for RX. Having a choice is an important freedom, something getting more rare these days.
Simply you can contact the above clinic through contact address via email or Phone.
If someone can please inform me, what is the difference between this “dying with dignity” versus what everyone does not like to discuss what it still/truly is: suicide. In my opinion, even choosing “death with dignity” is STILL suicide. I believe it is just a politically correct way to say “suicide” because the person is still taking his/her life.
Also, is it me or would anyone find this abit odd that someone can pick the day he/she wishes to die?
I only ask these questions for informative purposes; to try to understand this topic in greater detail.
Tanya81271
Brittany Maynard, the young woman with brain cancer in Oregon, can choose the day of her death because she has qualified under Oregon Death With Dignity Act 1998 and now possesses a physician-prescribed lethal dose, which she can take ingest whenever she chooses. Whether it will be this coming Nov. 1 as stated remains to be seen — she is free to extend it, or cancel it.
Washington State and Vermont have similar laws to Oregon.
Brittany took her life on the day she predicted, Saturday, November 1, 2014.
A brave person.
I am 74 and a member of Dignitas. I am concerned about the post by pcm1 above. I would like to
hear from someone (friend, family member)with a more positive experience with Dignitas.
Also, has anyone gone to Zurich (before they were terminal) to establish a relationship with
this group?
I just find it hard to believe there is a meaning to life when all it means is endless unendurable suffering. I myself am a member of Dignitas and me and my family are working on getting the needed documentation sent over to them. I am in a tremendous amount of pain every day and after 14 years of fighting my ilness I’ve had enough. It’s that bad. I consider this the final resort solution as I am not responding to treatment with pain medication any more. Should I choose to keep it up the constant level of pain will most likely drive me insane and I cannot imagine a fate more horrible. I’d much rather die no question about it