Will you qualify? Can you go on your own?

“Hard but not impossible”

It is difficult but not impossible to persuade one of the end-of-life centres that you should be accepted as a sole traveller.   The most difficult to persuade will be EX International, followed by Lifecircle and the most persuadable is likely to be Pegasos.   There are good reasons for their hesitation.

The most obvious reason is that if no friend or family member is with you then the centre will have no re-assurance that your family are in support of what you are seeking to do.   If it turns out that they have assisted your death and the family are very angry about it then all sorts of consequences could follow.

A second reason is simply one of identification.   How will they know you are who you say you are ?   Resemblance to a photograph on a passport or driving licence seems hardly enough to end the life of an individual you may not have met until the day before.   The police may require positive identification of the body and there is no stronger way of getting that right than by the word of a close relative.

If you have travelled on your own, Lifecircle always ask for detailed dental records formally authenticated by your own dentist. So does Dignitas. There is a third reason, too. The emotional impact on your family is likely to be much more manageable if they have been involved right until the end.

The more relaxed approach of Pegasos seems out of line with the others but may be related to their Australian connections.   Pegasos runs its own office in Melbourne and has strong historic links with Exit International, founded by Philip Nitschke. For Pegasos, their relative flexibility has also led to a couple of bruising encounters with the media. In each case, the patient had travelled to Pegasos alone but had assured the Pegasos staff that their families were fully aware of what they were going to do. These assurances then turned out to be completely false and Pegasos were left to face the difficult consequences. Athanasios does taken patients on their own but seeks also to find independent evidence that their relatives are aware.

Even though assisted suicide is now legal in all but two of its states, Pegasos still takes a number of cases from Australia.