Suicide is good business that is very bad.

Founded in 1998 by lawyer Ludwig Minelli, Dignitas is a Swiss nonprofit organization, headquartered in Zurich, with a field office in Hanover. Given liberal assisted suicide laws, Dignitas offers a menu of services including administering lethal drugs for paying “members” and providing a room in which to die. In addition, The Washington Post reports: “The organization takes care of the legal and logistical arrangements, from obtaining the drugs to disposing of the body.”[1]

Dignitas charges between $5,000 and $10,000, depending on the level of service. Members come from abroad as well. Of the 1,000 members who have died, approximately 10% have come from the United Kingdom. The Post continues: “If all goes smoothly, members can die the same day they arrive in Switzerland.”

Crucially, members are not required to be terminally ill. Depression is sufficient. Or, as former employee and whistleblower, Soraya Wernli, alleges, one must merely show up and have money. Wernli claims that an 81-year-old woman was persuaded to pay approximately $200,000 for Dignitas services.

In the UK’s Daily Mail, Wernli states: “I don’t know of a single case where they have refused to hand out the drugs.” She continues: “The room where people were to die was often filthy, because Minelli skimped on the cleaning bills. Often there would be shoes or underwear or some other deeply personal item of an earlier victim lying beneath the bed or around the room. It was shameful.”

She recounts her first days at Dignitas.

Minelli said I should empty the sacks onto a long table — they were huge — and sort through everything. I opened one up and was horrified by what was inside. Mobile phones, handbags, ladies’ tights, shoes, spectacles, money, purses, wallets, jewels.

I realised these were possessions which had been left behind by the dead. They had never been returned to family members. Minelli made his patients sign forms saying the possessions were now the property of Dignitas and then sold everything on to pawn and second-hand shops. I felt disgusted.

You see these old photos of people in Nazi death camps sorting through the possessions of those who had been gassed. Well, right then and there, that is how I felt.

Finally, Wernli alleges botched, gruesome deaths, including the 70-hour ordeal of Peter Auhagen. No charges have been filed.

The UK’s Sun adds to the story with the headline, “Dignitas Urns Dumped in Lake.” The urn count, recovered from the bottom of Lake Zurich, was 300.[3]

< § >

—
[1] Craig Whitlock, “Branching Out to Serve a Growing but Dying Market,” Washington Post (11/1/2005).
[2] Allan Hall, “Cashing in on despair? Suicide clinic Dignitas is a profit obsessed killing machine, claims ex-worker,” Daily Mail (1/25/2009).
[3] Nick Parker, “Dignitas Urns Dumped in Lake,” Sun (4/27/2010).