17 year old girl legally euthanised [trigger warning] ***MNHQ note that the details of this story are disputed***

[Notabedofroses]

I am quite shocked reading that a depressed young girl called Noa Pothoven of just seventeen has just been legally euthanised by doctors in the Netherlands.

She was not terminally ill, nor was she brain dead or in a coma for twenty five year.

She was in fact depressed and anorexic.

She was raped as a child, and became depressed and had PTSD.

I can not help but feel she has been massively failed in every single way, how can it be that the doctors gave up on her? She was seventeen, and could have eventually found her way out of the darkness that is teen depression with the right help and support.

What message does it give to other teens? That the easiest way out is to die?

Many many of us are survivors of tragedies, many of us have had serious eating disorders, depression and suicidal thoughts/attempts. Those very same people have gone on to have wonderful, successful and fulfilling lives, but now she will never ever get the chance to turn this around for herself.

I can not stress how much I disagree with euthanising a child of seventeen for depression and anorexia.

Thoughts anyone?

However she also wrote a book on the lack of support for psychoactive care for teenagers in the Netherlands. Can legally kill yourself but not receive report for traumatised youngsters. Beggars belief.

I don't think she could be legally killed.

They just couldn't force-feed her legally when she refused to eat, and to be fair, I think 17-year-olds in Britain are also legally entitled to refuse force-feeding.

There are minimal facts in the public domain, to the extent that it's not even clear how she died. It's a tragic story, but extrapolating and speculating from almost zero knowledge of what actually happened seem to me to be unwise.

Should the minimum age be 25 for these kinds of decisions? I believe science backs up the fact that people's brains continue developing until then and so things could change significantly between 17 and 25.

There is a great thread on twitter at the moment by Naomi O'Leary outlining the ACTUAL facts of this story. It appears official euthanasia was denied. Worth a read.

Apologies, I see that this has already been mentioned lower in the thread.

And if you are killing seventeen year old girls for being depressed where it the cut off

What a goady, ill-informed, over-simplistic way of looking at this tragedy.

Competent people can refuse treatment, and in many areas of the UK, children as young as 10 can be deemed to be the decision contributors in their care. Legally, in the UK, unless court ordered, the treating medical team have the last say in treatment decisions, unless a competent patient refuses treatment. That is, a patient can refuse treatment that their Doctor feels is appropriate and beneficial, but they can't compel a Doctor to treat them against their deemed best interests. So, for example, they could refuse intubation and ventilation, but couldn't make a Doctor intubate and ventilate if the Doctor feels it isn't beneficial.

If this girl was competent, as in she was able to weigh up the options in her treatment, could understand the consequences of her options, and of sound mind, she could refuse treatment. A court could well think that she was of sound mind in general, so could rationalise her depression & treatment, but not of sound mind in relation to her anorexia.

As for the 'Liverpool Care Pathway', although that pathway has been abolished, the practice hasn't. If a decision has been made that it is in the best interests of the patient to provide comfort rather than active treatment, every Trust will have a protocol standardising that care. That's good practice. The care will still be individualised, but the standards will apply to all patients, that is, provide comfort, relieve suffering, promote a 'good death' as far as possible.

Stopping IV fluids in the last days of life prevents patients from essentially drowning. It is a kindness, not an attempt to hasten death. I wish more had been done to explain the rationale for care, rather than the media giving the impression that HCPs try to shuffle patients off the mortal coil.

There was a thread yesterday where I tried to get the facts of the case across with as little success as some posters here.

Noa received treatment for her extensive mental health issues from the age of 11, was admitted to mental health institutions 21 times, repeatedly tried to kill herself, was force-fed with a tube for a year, was put into a coma to help her gain weight due to her anorexia, was kept in an isolation cell for three months every night to prevent her from killing herself, denied euthanasia at 16 because of her age and a year later finally it was decided to provide palliative care as she was starving herself to death. There was no assisted suicide, just the decision to no longer intervene after six years of fruitless and invasive treatments against her will (which made her, as a victim of assault and rape, even more miserable). She was strong and wrote an important book on the failings of mental healthcare, especially due to long wait lists and the non-existence of a clinic where she could stay longterm and be treated for all her problems simultaneously (because of the Dutch healthcare system being so led by protocol). The international news reports about this case are all riddled with error for the sake of sensation and just repeating one another.

twitter.com/NaomiOhReally/status/1136189899672084480

An explanation of why the newspaper reports are so wrong.

Laila Me too! Hopefully, if they can't believe anonymous MN posters, some will read the link above and will realise just how misleading the newspapers were.

YANBU OP. I support euthanasia for terminal illness etc but not for something that can be treated like this. It is shocking.

Just read lailadays post. Context is everything people!! I take my previous post back!

Hopefuly others will do similar. ethelfleda

It is impossible to properly debate and dicuss such things with so much misinformation. Death is hard enought o talk about as it is!

Could Mumsnet at least change the title of the thread, which is misleading?

It looks like the headlines are very misleading in this case as PPs have pointed out.

Firstly, I have fact checked, many, many news feed are covering this story. It is on every single new feed from Sky news all the way through to Times/Metro etc.

ALL say she has been euthanised with the help of the end of life assistance team on Sunday. None say she had her feeding tubes removed.

I understand the need for more facts, however I am highlighting and discussing the terrible situation she is in, and that of her family. I am questioning what support she has received for what is fairly common problem here in the UK. I am also questioning the message this gives to other teens in her position. It is not of positivity or hope. I personally find it very chilling that it has all happened in such a public way.

The mystery surrounding the facts, and the loss of a young life is upsetting, and we should reflect how we can avoid this happening to our children. I don't think anyone can disagree that it is a terrible outcome for her.

Firstly, I have fact checked, many, many news feed are covering this story. It is on every single new feed from Sky news all the way through to Times/Metro etc.

Have you checked any Dutch news outlets?

Notabedofroses the miscommunication occurred when it story was translated from Dutch to English so all English Language tabloids are copying each other’s mistake.

I have aspergers and I often wish I could die. I'm really just waiting until the dcs are a bit older. I'm very disappointed to learn that I won't be able to do it in Switzerland though if they don't allow for mental anguish.

Don't underestimate the pain of living with mental anguish.

@Notabedofroses please read the twitter link I provided... a Reuters trained journalist who went to the Dutch media and got an explanation.

She includes more details of the care Noa received. If you want to have done all the research easily available please read it. Noa's story is sad enough without perpetuating the untruths.

In other countries newspapers are apologising for their translation error... there was an error in the first translation that all other newspapers took and ran with.

The mystery surrounding the facts Just to repeat, there is no mystery. It was just a lack of professional translation. ALL of the information you deem lackig is available in Dutch media, how do you think I knew any diferent to you?

How do you think other posters were very quick to point out the discrepency? They either ARE Dutch or, like me have Dutch friends... we had discussed Noa before, about a year ago, so I was aware of much of her story.

I wish people would listen. She. Wasn't. Euthanised. She committed suicide by refusing to eat or drink. She applied for euthanasia and was turned down. It takes a few minutes of internet research to find the true story.

The Liverpool care pathway or end of life pathway didn't Euthanize patients at all, what actually happened was all active treatment was stopped when the medical team felt a patients and of life was imminent , although their condition was continually assessed to see if there was any improvement if there was treatment was started again , this meant all medication,other than pain relief and sedatives were stopped regular mouth care and eye care was given and usually a patch was applied behind a patients ea r, to stop secretions ,patients s were not offered food and fluid because ime they were in a coma ,this is my experience when working in Dementia care .

To be fair Techno when OP posted this it was not available. ALL media in English carried the same story, as did many other European media, but the error started here, with and English Daily, I believe

ineedaknittedhat I can't read your post and not write to you.

I agree, the pain of living with it is beyond words at times.
I'm so sorry you are living like this.
I sincerely hope that your mind is changed before your kids grow up. I would imagine they do as well. Take care.