Dutch coma prince 'should leave UK so he can die' in Netherlands

 
31 August 2012

A Dutch politician has reopened the “right to die” debate by calling for the country’s prince to be brought home from the London hospital where he is in a coma so his life support machine can be switched off.

Prince Friso, 43, has been in a coma for six months after he was caught in an avalanche while skiing in the Austrian resort of Lech. His wife Princess Mabel has been keeping a vigil at his bedside at the Wellington Hospital in St John’s Wood with his mother Queen Beatrice flying to London almost every weekend to be at his bedside.

Netherlands senator Heleen Dupuis said: “It’s questionable whether the prince will ever have a normal life again. Had the prince been sent to a Dutch hospital, doctors would probably have turned off the life support systems because there is such a slim possibility that he will ever recover.”

The Netherlands has had a “euthanasia law” since 2002 allowing doctors to end treatment if a victim’s suffering is deemed to be “interminable and unbearable”. But there are many restrictions to the legislation and the country has been embroiled in a debate over the issue similar to that in Britain.

The most recent case involved locked-in-syndrome sufferer Tony Nicklinson, who lost his legal battle to allow assisted suicide but died last week.

Prince Friso and Princess Mabel live in Kew with their daughters Luana and Zaria. He is a former Goldman Sachs banker and was working for a uranium enrichment company at the time of his accident.

It is believed the royal family want to bring the prince home. If doctors switch off his life support he would become the highest-profile patient to die under the euthanasia reforms.

Dutch royal watcher Ary van der Waay said: “If the prince dies you can expect emotional scenes in the Netherlands of the kind that followed the death of Princess Diana in the UK.”

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