Belgian Catholic care home was fined for refusing the euthanasia of a 74-year-old woman

Judges in Belgium  fined a Catholic nursing home for refusing to allow the euthanasia of a lung cancer sufferer on its premises.

The St Augustine rest home in Diest was ordered to pay a total of €6,000 after it stopped doctors from giving a lethal injection to Mariette Buntjens.

Days later, the 74-year-old woman was instead taken by ambulance to her house to die “in peaceful surroundings”.

Buntjens’ family later sued the nursing home for causing their mother “unnecessary mental and physical suffering”.

A civil court in Louvain upheld the complaint and fined the home €3,000 and ordered it to pay compensation of €1,000 to each of Mrs Buntjens’s three adult children.

At  the hearing, the three judges decided unanimously that “the nursing home had no right to refuse euthanasia on the basis of conscientious objection”.

The test case clarifies Belgian law to mean that only individual medical professionals – and not hospitals or care homes – have the right to refuse euthanasia requests.