An investigation has been launched in Belgium after two nurses allegedly suffocated their patient with a pillow.
The incident reportedly took place after a doctor failed to successfully administer palliative sedation to the patient in March 2022.
Alexina Wattiez, a resident of Oupeye in Belgium, was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2021. Her condition rapidly deteriorated and, according to local news outlet Nieuwsblad, the 36-year-old was in so much pain that she asked to be put to rest.
Her doctors reportedly agreed to administer palliative sedation, a medical practice that induces an absence or decrease in awareness in order to end intolerable pain and suffering at the end of one’s life. This is not the same as euthanasia.
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The American Academy of Hospice and Palliative medicine states that palliative sedation does not usually alter the timing or mechanism of a patient’s death as it is most commonly used during very advanced stages of a terminal illness.
Wattiez’s partner, Christophe Stulens, said that he and their 15-year-old daughter were asked to wait on the terrace outside while her doctor administered the palliative treatment. Suddenly, they heard her screaming.
“I recognized her voice,” Stulens said. “Afterwards we saw her lying on the bed with her eyes and mouth open.”
The autopsy showed signs of asphyxiation, and one of the nurses reportedly admitted to using a pillow to suffocate the patient after the treatment had been unsuccessful, French-language newspaper La Meuse reported.
“Alexina wanted to sleep peacefully, but apparently there were too few toxins,” Stulens said.
The family’s lawyer, Maître Renaud Molders-Pierre, said that they did not believe it was an act of malice. Rather, Wattiez’s nurses had gotten to know her well over the time that she had been in their care and could not bear to see her in pain after the sedative treatment was unsuccessful.
The doctor claims to have been out of the room when the alleged suffocation took place, local news outlet RTBF reported.
The case is now under investigation, but Molders-Pierre says the family’s motives are not solely to receive compensation: “Their goal is not to demand sanctions but to provoke a debate and that this type of affair never happens again.”
“Could you imagine that your mother or your wife could end up suffocated by a cushion as part of her end of life? I think no one can conceive and imagine that,” the lawyer said.