Dignitas (Swiss non-profit organisation)

In general, Dignitas uses the following protocol to assist suicides: an oral dose of an antiemetic drug, followed approximately half an hour later by a lethal overdose of 15 grams of powdered pentobarbital dissolved in a glass of water. If necessary, the drugs can be ingested via a drinking straw. The pentobarbital overdose depresses the central nervous system, causing the person to become drowsy and fall asleep within 3–5 minutes of drinking it. Anaesthesia progresses to coma and later, as the person's breathing becomes more shallow, is followed by respiratory arrest and death, which occurs within 30–40 minutes of ingesting the pentobarbital.

Exceptionally, in four cases in 2008, Dignitas used breathing helium gas[5] as a suicide method instead of a pentobarbital overdose. The medical supervision was still observed, however, and the method avoided controlled drugs, which reduced the risk of the medical board / authorities harassing the medical doctor giving a "green light" for the accompanied suicide.

In two referendums on 15 May 2011, voters in the Canton of Zürich overwhelmingly rejected calls to ban assisted suicide or to outlaw the practice for non-residents. Out of more than 278,000 ballots cast, the initiative to ban assisted suicide was rejected by 85 per cent of voters and the initiative to outlaw it for non-residents was turned down by 78 per cent.[6][7][8]

Ludwig Minelli said in an interview in March 2008 that Dignitas had assisted 840 people to die, 60% of them Germans.[5] By 2010, that number had exceeded a thousand assisted suicides.[9]

Most people contacting Dignitas do not plan to die but wish for insurance in case their illness becomes intolerable. Of those who receive the so-called "provisional green light", 70% never return to Dignitas.[5]

21% of people receiving assisted suicide in Dignitas do not have a terminal or progressive illness, but rather "weariness of life".[10]

According to the official Dignitas website,[11] as of 2017 Dignitas charges its patients 7,000 Swiss Francs (approx. £5,180 / US$7,980) for preparation and suicide assistance, or 10,500 Swiss Francs (approx. £7,770 / US$11,970) in case of taking over family duties, including funerals, medical costs and official fees. Dignitas has been known to waive certain costs where there is hardship.[12] Under Swiss Law, Dignitas operates as a non-profit organization, but does not open its finances to the public,[13] which has elicited criticism from some quarters.

Although mainly Germans turn to Dignitas for so called 'assisted suicide', as of August 2015, approximately 300 British citizens have travelled to Switzerland from the UK to die at one of Dignitas' rented apartments in Zürich.[14]

Dignitas-founder Ludwig Minelli describes the difficulties that Dignitas has faced over the years.[15] In Sept 2007, it was evicted, blocked or locked out of three flats, and so Mr Minelli offered assisted suicide in his private house. This, however, was then prohibited by the local council. In October 2007, Dignitas was again prevented from working in a private house by the local council and refused rooms on an industrial site. In December 2007, an interim judgment prevented Dignitas from working in a building next to a busy brothel. The media frenzy led to several people offering Dignitas flats or houses, of which one turned out to be suitable. Since 2009, Dignitas has a house at an undisclosed location where accompanied suicide for people from abroad has taken place.

In certain right-to-die organisations, an age restriction is in place for potential patients, so as to prevent young people from using their services.[16]

In April 2010, private divers found a group of over 60 cremation urns in Lake Zürich. Each of the urns bore the logo of the Zürich Nordheim crematorium (German: Krematorium Nordheim) also used by Dignitas. Soraya Wernli, a former employee, had told The Times 18 months previously that Dignitas had dumped at least 300 urns in the lake. She claimed that Minelli dumped them there himself, but later asked his daughter and another member of staff to do it. In 2008, allegedly two members of Dignitas were caught trying to pour the ashes of 20 dead people into the lake.[17] However, it was never established whether Dignitas had anything to do with it and no charges were taken. In Switzerland, it is not against the law to scatter cremation ashes out into nature.

In 2008, the documentary film Right to Die? was broadcast on Sky Real Lives (rebroadcast on PBS Frontline in March 2010 as The Suicide Tourist). Directed by Oscar-winning Canadian John Zaritsky, it depicts the assisted suicide of several people who have gone to Switzerland to end their lives. It includes the story of Craig Ewert, a 59-year-old retired university professor who suffered from a motor neurone disease. Ewert traveled to Switzerland where he was assisted by the Dignitas NGO. The documentary shows him passing away with Mary, his wife of 37 years, at his side. It was shown on the Swiss television network SF1 and is available as a web movie on the Dignitas website.[18]

The BBC produced a film titled A Short Stay in Switzerland telling the story of Dr Anne Turner, who made the journey to the Dignitas assisted suicide clinic. On January 24, 2006, the day before her 67th birthday, she ended her life. The film was shown on BBC1 on January 25, 2009.

British maestro Sir Edward Downes, who conducted the BBC Philharmonic and the Royal Opera but struggled in recent years (but was not terminally ill) as his hearing and sight failed, died with his wife, who had terminal cancer, at an assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland in July 2009. He was 85 and she was 74.[19]

French theorist and translator Michele Causse chose to die on her birthday, July 29, 2010, in association with Dignitas.[20][21]

On June 13, 2011, BBC Two aired a documentary titled Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die, featuring author and Alzheimer's disease sufferer Sir Terry Pratchett guiding viewers through an assisted suicide which took place at Dignitas facilities in Switzerland. Peter Smedley, a British hotelier and millionaire, and his wife Christine allowed for Pratchett to film Smedley's deliberate consumption of prepared barbiturate in a glass in order to kill himself as Christine comforted Smedley in his demise. The documentary received a highly polarized reaction in the United Kingdom, with much praise for the programme as "brave", "sensitive"[22] and "important"[23] whilst it also gathered accusations of "pro-death" bias from anti-euthanasia pressure groups and of encouraging the view that disability was a good reason for killing from disability groups.[24][25]

Dignitas continued to be presented in the media as a political stance on the right to die. BBC featured an article regarding the death of UK citizen Jeffrey Spector, a businessman who decided to travel to Switzerland to undergo assisted suicide through Dignitas for an inoperable tumour which most likely would have caused paralysis later on in its development. This situation reignited the debate revolving around the morality of assisted suicides in certain dilemmas, and incited current stances concerning euthanasia. Former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer said he would "attempt to reintroduce a bill that would allow assisted dying in the UK".[26]

The book Me Before You and the film adaptation of the same name discuss the organization as it serves a vital function in both the main plot and the characters' lives.