Annual report on the Assistance in Dying Provision of the Ministry of Health for the year 2022: 288 euthanasia benefits were performed throughout the territory, exactly 50% of those requested (576). Since June 24, 2021, the day the euthanasia law came into effect, until now, 363 (75 in 2021) of a total of 749 requests for help in dying have been carried out. In 2022, a third of applicants for this benefit died before their request was resolved.
In most cases, administration was requested by the healthcare team. 14% of the applicants took part in the organ donation program according to the specific established protocol and 135 people have been transplanted.
But who are the patients who request help in dying? According to data provided by the Ministry of Health, these are people between 60 and 80 years old, with very serious neurological or oncological diseases. The number of people who changed their minds or who requested a postponement of aid in dying is minimal, according to the aforementioned sources.
The benefits have been provided preferably in the field of Primary Care and public health.
The number of denied requests was less than 20%, of which, after the corresponding claims before the corresponding Euthanasia Guarantee and Evaluation Commissions of each community, a third of those denied were considered favorable. This commission is the administrative body in charge of verifying compliance with the provisions of the law in its territorial scope, as well as authorizing the application of the provision of aid in dying.
As for the communities, Catalonia is the region in which the most patients request this benefit (175 in 2022) and the most requests are made (91, 52%), well above the next autonomous community, Madrid. In this one, 62 were requested and 61% (38) were carried out.
After Madrid, are Andalusia and Valencia, which received 46 applications and 27 were carried out in the first case and 24 in the second. And from there, the rest of the communities.
At the bottom are Murcia and La Rioja, with five applications, and four and two made respectively. In the cities of Ceuta and Melilla, no requests were registered, according to Health data.