Many visitors to this website ask what “Exit” is ? They mean, is it an organisation, where is it based and does it provide access to Assisted Voluntary Dying ?
The answer is that there are three totally separate organisations using that name.
The first is Exit Deutsche Schwiez and it is based in Zurich. It is the largest provider of AVD services in the world and it has 180,000 registered members. However, its services are only available to people who live in Switzerland or in Germany.
Exit International is the organisation run by Dr Philip Nitschke and Dr Fiona Stewart. It originated in Australia and it now based in Holland. It has a worldwide membership and is active in Holland, Belgium, Britain and America as well as in Australia and New Zealand. It is, essentially, a campaigning organisation in favour of changes to many existing national laws. It has tended to concentrate specifically upon the means of death. In particularly it has promoted the “Sarco” suicide pod that has received a great deal of publicity.
Exit International itself does not provide AVD facilities but it has established an associated company called the The Last Resort to do so in Switzerland. This has conducted one AVD, using the Sarco, but its use proved highly contentious and resulted in a prosecution. It has not been used recently and the work of The Last Resort seems to have been suspended.
The third company is EX International. This is a Swiss company, based in Bern, and it does offer AVD services for non-Swiss citizens. In fact, this website has received favourable reports of its activities. However, it usually confines its work to the provision of AVDs in patients’ own homes and therefore its use by foreigners is inevitably limited.
Still confused ? Well you are hardly the only one.
