Sittard nursing home rebuked for allowing 87-year-old woman to starve herself to death
The Health and Youth Care Inspectorate (IGJ) has reprimanded a nursing home in Sittard (Limburg) for the starvation death of an 87-year-old woman. The woman, who had dementia, died after not eating or drinking anything for ten days. According to the IGJ, the nursing home did not sufficiently determine whether this was what she wanted.
It was unclear whether the woman had decided to end her life by starvation without the influence of others, the IGJ determined. The nursing home, therefore, failed to comply with the legal requirement that it ensure “The care provided is based on the wishes of the client.”
The woman died on 1 June 2023. The Zuyderland Zorg Foundation, which covers the nursing home in Sittard, immediately reported the incident to the Inspectorate, which launched an investigation.
The IGJ concluded that the nursing home did “not do enough in the care provided to the client to ensure that she could decide for herself, without the influence of others, whether or not she wanted to eat and drink.” The nursing home also did not do enough to “determine whether the client was still capable of making a decision herself.”
The woman had made varying statements about her wish to die. There was a lot of discussion about her and what she wanted in the nursing home, and several care providers expressed concerns about what was happening. But the care providers did not listen to each other enough, the agreements made were “insufficiently clear,” and there was little control over what actually happened to the woman, the IGJ said.
In response, the nursing home said it regretted what happened and has taken measures to prevent anything similar from happening in the future.
The Inspectorate did not impose any further measures.
