Peter Baumann (psychiatrist)

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Peter Baumann (* 1935) is a Swiss psychiatrist who has engendered controversy for who conducting physician assisted suicides.

[edit] Background

Baumann began practising when 38 years old in Zurich. He employed body therapy in addition to more conventional methods - Body work (alternative medicine)) and attracted attention with comments on Swiss military psychiatry. Baumann was also fighting for the reputation of LSD in an organisation called "Schweizerische Ärztegesellschaft für Psycholytische Therapie" (SÄPT, another member was the also controversial Samuel Widmer.

Baumann worked as a prescribing doctor for “Exit (Switzerland)” and sat on their Ethics Committee. This organisation assists the terminally ill to take lethal doses of a barbiturate which can be legally prescribed by a doctor (commonly Pentobarbital sodium; An organisation with similar approach is the also Swiss "Dignitas").

Baumann left Exit to form his own organisation Suizidhilfe as he believed that Exit did not do enough to further the cause of the mentally ill should they decide to end their own lives. As it is not allowable to prescribe fatal doses of barbiturates for these people, he had to create suitable secure methods including the Exit bag combined with Helium or Laughing Gas.

Using such methods, Baumann has helped two people, e.g. an anakastic personality and a heavily depressive woman. This incurred the wrath of the public prosecution office in Basel who have accused him of “vermutete Beihilfe zum Suizid aus selbstsüchtigen Motiven“ (literally: supposed suicide assistance with egoistic motive.) Towards the end of 2002 the society of Zurich physicians („Zürcher Ärztegesellschaft“) sought to prevent Baumann from continuing with his work, but having reached the end of his career he left the society. He also left the Zurich society for psychiatry and psychotherapy (“Zürcher Gesellschaft für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie“) Baumann was held on remand for 2 months in Basel and upon release pledged to stop actively assisting suicide for the mentally ill until the matter had been legally clarified, but remains consultant for his organisation "Suizidhilfe Schweiz" (around 150 members).

Assisting suicide is legally allowed in Switzerland under certain circumstances. For the terminally ill a doctor is allowed to prescribe a fatal dose of barbiturates. For those without a terminal illness no barbiturates can be prescribed; however, it is still legally permissible to assist these people provided they are mentally competent. Baumann extended this assistance to the mentally ill thereby raising the subject of whether they are mentally competent.

Baumann searched for freely available and “prescription-free” methods, that everyone can use. Some experts believe that depression is treatable and temporary – Baumann disagrees with this and asserts that the mentally ill also have the right to put an end to their life if they consider it to be unbearable and that they are in the majority of cases mentally competent to do so.

The programme „Rundschau“ on SF 1 which showed Baumann helping the 60 year old depressive and wheelchair-bound Heidi T. (Video material recorded the 2. November 2002, transmitted on the 15. Januar 2003) gave a moving portrayal of one woman's assisted suicide and unsurprisingly generated heated debate. A trial currently pending will consider the issue of whether Baumann acted within the law or not.

This is a theme that has occupied him for many years; in an (A Tages-Anzeiger-article of August 18 1973 he asks: "Ist Leben freiwillig?", and discusses the relation of life and death and the right to end life