By Europe correspondent Barbara Miller
There is nothing about the home we visit near Arnhem, south of Amsterdam, to suggest it is anything but ordinary.
It is council collection day and assorted bits of broken or outworn furniture line the pavement.
A postman asks 77-year-old Toos Pietersma to take a package for an absent neighbour.
Two young girls — Toos’s “little friends” — wave to her as they pass by the window.
It was here in this suburban home that something extraordinary happened, something that in Australia could land you a jail term.
Toos’s husband of 60 years, Siep, killed himself, surrounded by his extended family, with the help of a doctor.
In 2013, the year Siep Pietersma died, around 4,900 Dutch people took advantage of the country’s euthanasia law to end their lives.
Official figures for 2014 have not yet been released, but it is thought the figure rose to around 5,400.
Siep made the decision to end his life after he was diagnosed with dementia.
He had watched his mother lose her mind, and lived in fear of ending the same way.
“His mother had a lot of pain,” Siep’s son Hans said.
“She didn’t know where she was, she couldn’t move right, she wanted to die.”
Siep asked his GP to euthanase him, but she declined.
The former driving instructor then turned to the End of Life Clinic, a network of doctors and nurses who consider requests for euthanasia which local GPs have refused.
The End of Life Clinic doctors must decide if the patient’s suffering is, as the law stipulates, unbearable.
Sjef Boesten is one of the clinic’s doctors and the man who helped Siep die.
He said it was easier to make that call with cancer patients than with people suffering from dementia or psychiatric issues.
“You have to measure unbearable suffering. You don’t have tools for that to measure. It’s not a fever, it’s a feeling,” he said.
Mr Boesten said he felt it was almost a duty to help people who wished to die; to carry out that act either by handing them poison to drink, or administering the dose.
“I’m thinking of helping people, people suffering very much… to end that suffering when nothing else is possible.” he said.
When the moment came for Siep to die, his extended family gathered around in the living room to say their goodbyes.
Toos even sang a little at her husband’s request. She got out a few lines of We’ll Meet Again before she choked up.
“I’ve tried, yes I’ve tried,” she said.
“He said ‘Stop now, it’s OK, I’m getting sleepy.'”
At that moment Siep gulped down the liquid that would kill him.
“Go and sleep,” his wife told him.
Minutes later he passed away.
“It’s very difficult losing your father, it’s very emotional,” Hans said.
“At the moment his dying is closing, I wasn’t able to say the things I wanted to say to him.”
Hans nevertheless said that he was happy his father’s wish was granted.
“It’s OK for me. He died in the way he wished … I have a good feeling with it,” he said.
Euthanasia was meant to be a last resort: professor
Cases like these worry Theo Boer, professor of Health Care Ethics at the University of Kampen in the Netherlands.
He used to think the Dutch euthanasia law was a “good”, “balanced” and “respectful compromise”.
But Professor Boer is now alarmed by the growing numbers of Dutch people choosing to end their lives by way of euthanasia.
“The general public is increasingly seeing euthanasia as a right, and the pressure on doctors is immense,” he said.
“Euthanasia was meant to be a last resort. What we see now is that, to some people, euthanasia is becoming a preferred way to die.”
The End of Life Clinic has been criticised recently over several cases, one where a woman suffering from tinnitus was granted euthanasia.
Hans Pietersma accepts that many people have reservations about the clinic’s services.
“If people have criticisms fine,” he said.
“It’s my decision, you may criticise it, but it’s my decision and I look for people to help me finalise the decision.”
Toos said she misses her husband dearly but has no regrets about his death.
“It was his time … It was a good beautiful moment,” she said.
Watch Barbara Miller’s report on Lateline at 8:30pm on ABC News 24 and 10:30pm on ABC.