More than 3,000 sign up to die in South Korean palliative care trial

Hospitals have allowed patients to stop receiving treatment three months before palliative care becomes legally into force next year

3,000 people signed up for palliative care in South Korea (Getty)

More than 3,000 have signed up for South Korea’s palliative care trial.

According to data by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, hospitals have received thousands of requests from terminal ill patients to sign up for the die with dignity programme.

South Korea’s National Assembly passed the law to stop prolonging terminally ill patient’s lives, if requested, in January of last year but it won’t come into force until February 2018.

However, hospitals allowed patients to stop receiving treatment before it is legal in a three month trial period.

Thousands have signed necessary documents saying they would opt to stop receiving medical treatment in a three-month trial period that began in October.

During the trial doctors across 13 hospitals discussed end-of-life care with patients or their family members.

South Korea’s Supreme Court recognised that prolonging a terminally ill comatose patient’s right to die as a violation of an individual’s basic dignity in 2009.

It ordered a hospital to remove her respirator, noting that it was wrong to continue treatment just to prolong life without hope of recovery.