BRUSSELS: Born hemiplegic, practically blind, 43-year-old Lydie Imhoff was regularly shedding using her limbs. Final 12 months, she made the choice to journey from her native France to Belgium to endure euthanasia — for “worry of dwelling in a lifeless physique.”
An AFP staff first joined Lydie in March 2023, to fulfill with a psychiatrist in Brussels who gave a inexperienced gentle for her to endure the process, made authorized in Belgium twenty years in the past however nonetheless outlawed in France.
They travelled together with her once more early this 12 months, on a last journey from the house in jap France the place she lived alone together with her pet rabbit, to Brussels the place her ashes have now been scattered.
Tuesday, January 30 – Besancon, France
Lydie’s house lies nearly empty, the sunshine of the setting solar glinting on the bay home windows. Huddled in her wheelchair, she sighs as her rabbit, Fortunate, shuffles across the room. The sound of her respiratory echoes by way of the empty house.
“On the one hand I am unable to watch for launch. On the opposite I really feel responsible for abandoning the folks I really like. However on the finish of the day, it is a selection I’ve made,” she tells AFP.
The temper is solemn, however that does not cease Lydie cracking jokes.
“Do not let me neglect to place the keys by way of the letterbox — or they will homicide me for it!”
Wednesday, January 31 – departure at daybreak
It is nonetheless darkish outdoors when Denis Rousseaux and his spouse Marie-Josee pull up outdoors Lydie’s residence in a rented van. Each retired, the previous anaesthetist and nurse have been serving to her since 2023 with the method of in search of euthanasia overseas.
Lower off from her household, Lydie depends wholly on the help of a handful of buddies and volunteers like these.
Selecting the backseat, she snuggles in opposition to Marie-Josee and pulls up her blanket, nonetheless flecked with the fur of her rabbit — which was taken in by a foster household the day earlier than she left.
As soon as the wheelchair is loaded in, Denis Rousseaux begins the engine. It is the primary time the couple have escorted somebody to Belgium.
“It is before everything a humanitarian gesture,” he says, his eyes locked on the highway forward. “The political side comes second.”
Wednesday, January 31 – lunch on the border
They break the journey in Longwy, a French city simply in need of the border, the place they meet Claudette Pierret, a right-to-die activist who first linked Lydie with Yves de Locht, the Belgian physician who will carry out the process.
A desk is laid for them — “It is like a birthday lunch!” quips Lydie, earlier than turning critical.
“I simply hope as soon as I am up there, that I will be in peace, that I can get some relaxation,” she says.
“I am drained. I am bored with every single day being a battle — in opposition to my sickness, in opposition to my disabilities, in opposition to every thing.”
“I do know I joke round, I shoot the breeze all day lengthy — however there you have got it.”
“What you see right here,” she says, pointing at her face, “that is not what’s actually beneath.”
After the meal is over, they are saying goodbye on the entrance gate. The van units off once more, certain for Brussels. Lydie’s day will not be over but. Arrived on the hospital, she settles into a big room, adorned with a seaside theme.
“OK then — what is the final meal on death row tonight?” she asks.
Wednesday, January 31 – in hospital in Brussels
Earlier than going to sleep, Lydie has a last interview together with her physician concerning the day forward.
“Are you continue to OK to do that?” asks de Locht.
“Sure! You are certain I am not going to get up, proper?” Lydie replies.
“Inform me what you continue to have in your thoughts,” he asks.
“I am considering of the folks I go away behind.”
“You already know what they are going to be considering? Nevertheless unhappy they’re, they’ll know you have got been let out.”
On the finish of their discuss, Lydie hugs the physician shut. “Your sweater is so delicate!” she tells him.
Thursday, February 1
The morning sky in Brussels is a crisp, brilliant blue. In Lydie’s hospital room, the curtains are drawn.
Marie-Josee and Denis Rousseaux are seated on both aspect of her mattress. Farmer protests are disrupting site visitors all around the metropolis, however the physician arrives on time.
He asks Lydie one final time if she needs to die. She solutions sure.
“OK, we’ll get the merchandise prepared. I will go away you collectively for a little bit longer, and we’ll be again in a couple of minutes.”
De Locht is assisted by a fellow physician, Wim Distelmans, head of the hospital’s palliative care unit. In a small laboratory, Distelmans mixes up the substance, utilizing three vials of Thiopental, a barbiturate.
The syringe is prepared. The docs stroll collectively again to Lydie’s room, the place Denis Rousseaux introduces her to Distelmans.
“So he is the large boss?” she asks — because the others burst out laughing.
They collect across the mattress. Change final phrases. De Locht publicizes: “Lydie, I bid you farewell.”
“See you up there?” she asks him. “All proper. Bye bye to you Belgians, bye to the French!”
Lydie’s empty wheelchair sits going through the bed room door, because the docs emerge again out.
De Locht shares his impressions.
“My feeling is that illness was killing her little by little, and I put an finish to her ache. That’s according to my ethics as a health care provider,” he says.
“I completely do not feel like I killed her. I really feel like I minimize quick her struggling.”
Afterwards, along with Distelmans, he finalises the paperwork he might want to undergo the nation’s oversight fee on euthanasia.
Earlier than leaving, he exchanges just a few phrases with Denis and Marie-Josee Rousseaux. “We set her free,” he tells them.
4 days after her demise, Lydie was cremated and her ashes scattered in a memorial backyard on the outskirts of Brussels, by the workers of the crematorium. No relations had been current.
Belgium’s 2002 regulation decriminalising euthanasia requires at the very least two skilled opinions in help of the affected person’s choice, one by a psychiatrist and one by a health care provider.
It stipulates that the request should stem from a “fixed and insufferable bodily or psychological struggling that may not be alleviated, ensuing from a critical and incurable dysfunction.”
In 2022, 2,966 folks underwent euthanasia in Belgium, in line with the federal oversight fee. Of that whole, 53 had been resident in France.
An AFP staff first joined Lydie in March 2023, to fulfill with a psychiatrist in Brussels who gave a inexperienced gentle for her to endure the process, made authorized in Belgium twenty years in the past however nonetheless outlawed in France.
They travelled together with her once more early this 12 months, on a last journey from the house in jap France the place she lived alone together with her pet rabbit, to Brussels the place her ashes have now been scattered.
Tuesday, January 30 – Besancon, France
Lydie’s house lies nearly empty, the sunshine of the setting solar glinting on the bay home windows. Huddled in her wheelchair, she sighs as her rabbit, Fortunate, shuffles across the room. The sound of her respiratory echoes by way of the empty house.
“On the one hand I am unable to watch for launch. On the opposite I really feel responsible for abandoning the folks I really like. However on the finish of the day, it is a selection I’ve made,” she tells AFP.
The temper is solemn, however that does not cease Lydie cracking jokes.
“Do not let me neglect to place the keys by way of the letterbox — or they will homicide me for it!”
Wednesday, January 31 – departure at daybreak
It is nonetheless darkish outdoors when Denis Rousseaux and his spouse Marie-Josee pull up outdoors Lydie’s residence in a rented van. Each retired, the previous anaesthetist and nurse have been serving to her since 2023 with the method of in search of euthanasia overseas.
Lower off from her household, Lydie depends wholly on the help of a handful of buddies and volunteers like these.
Selecting the backseat, she snuggles in opposition to Marie-Josee and pulls up her blanket, nonetheless flecked with the fur of her rabbit — which was taken in by a foster household the day earlier than she left.
As soon as the wheelchair is loaded in, Denis Rousseaux begins the engine. It is the primary time the couple have escorted somebody to Belgium.
“It is before everything a humanitarian gesture,” he says, his eyes locked on the highway forward. “The political side comes second.”
Wednesday, January 31 – lunch on the border
They break the journey in Longwy, a French city simply in need of the border, the place they meet Claudette Pierret, a right-to-die activist who first linked Lydie with Yves de Locht, the Belgian physician who will carry out the process.
A desk is laid for them — “It is like a birthday lunch!” quips Lydie, earlier than turning critical.
“I simply hope as soon as I am up there, that I will be in peace, that I can get some relaxation,” she says.
“I am drained. I am bored with every single day being a battle — in opposition to my sickness, in opposition to my disabilities, in opposition to every thing.”
“I do know I joke round, I shoot the breeze all day lengthy — however there you have got it.”
“What you see right here,” she says, pointing at her face, “that is not what’s actually beneath.”
After the meal is over, they are saying goodbye on the entrance gate. The van units off once more, certain for Brussels. Lydie’s day will not be over but. Arrived on the hospital, she settles into a big room, adorned with a seaside theme.
“OK then — what is the final meal on death row tonight?” she asks.
Wednesday, January 31 – in hospital in Brussels
Earlier than going to sleep, Lydie has a last interview together with her physician concerning the day forward.
“Are you continue to OK to do that?” asks de Locht.
“Sure! You are certain I am not going to get up, proper?” Lydie replies.
“Inform me what you continue to have in your thoughts,” he asks.
“I am considering of the folks I go away behind.”
“You already know what they are going to be considering? Nevertheless unhappy they’re, they’ll know you have got been let out.”
On the finish of their discuss, Lydie hugs the physician shut. “Your sweater is so delicate!” she tells him.
Thursday, February 1
The morning sky in Brussels is a crisp, brilliant blue. In Lydie’s hospital room, the curtains are drawn.
Marie-Josee and Denis Rousseaux are seated on both aspect of her mattress. Farmer protests are disrupting site visitors all around the metropolis, however the physician arrives on time.
He asks Lydie one final time if she needs to die. She solutions sure.
“OK, we’ll get the merchandise prepared. I will go away you collectively for a little bit longer, and we’ll be again in a couple of minutes.”
De Locht is assisted by a fellow physician, Wim Distelmans, head of the hospital’s palliative care unit. In a small laboratory, Distelmans mixes up the substance, utilizing three vials of Thiopental, a barbiturate.
The syringe is prepared. The docs stroll collectively again to Lydie’s room, the place Denis Rousseaux introduces her to Distelmans.
“So he is the large boss?” she asks — because the others burst out laughing.
They collect across the mattress. Change final phrases. De Locht publicizes: “Lydie, I bid you farewell.”
“See you up there?” she asks him. “All proper. Bye bye to you Belgians, bye to the French!”
Lydie’s empty wheelchair sits going through the bed room door, because the docs emerge again out.
De Locht shares his impressions.
“My feeling is that illness was killing her little by little, and I put an finish to her ache. That’s according to my ethics as a health care provider,” he says.
“I completely do not feel like I killed her. I really feel like I minimize quick her struggling.”
Afterwards, along with Distelmans, he finalises the paperwork he might want to undergo the nation’s oversight fee on euthanasia.
Earlier than leaving, he exchanges just a few phrases with Denis and Marie-Josee Rousseaux. “We set her free,” he tells them.
4 days after her demise, Lydie was cremated and her ashes scattered in a memorial backyard on the outskirts of Brussels, by the workers of the crematorium. No relations had been current.
Belgium’s 2002 regulation decriminalising euthanasia requires at the very least two skilled opinions in help of the affected person’s choice, one by a psychiatrist and one by a health care provider.
It stipulates that the request should stem from a “fixed and insufferable bodily or psychological struggling that may not be alleviated, ensuing from a critical and incurable dysfunction.”
In 2022, 2,966 folks underwent euthanasia in Belgium, in line with the federal oversight fee. Of that whole, 53 had been resident in France.
