"Doctor to Start End-of-Life Practice in Berkeley"

NBC Bayarea.com:  As California's right-to-die law goes into effect Thursday, a Berkeley-based doctor will open one of the first practices in the state that specializes in end-of-life options.

"I think it's an important right for the patient to have at the end of their life to control the way they die," says Dr. Lonny Shavelson.

The new law will allow terminally ill patients who meet certain criteria to ask their doctor for a prescription for life-ending medication. But in the event the patient's doctor declines to participate, Shavelson will step in. He already has several appointments with patients to evaluate their situations.

"This needs to be a well thought out, carefully planned," he says. "It's not something you call on Tuesday and say, 'Doctor, I'm suffering,' and on Wednesday we give you a prescription."

"Dutch people given the right to euthanasia because of mental, not terminal, illness"

Daily Mail:  Helena told the Mail: 'Jackie is only 45 but dearly wants to die. Our family believes she must be allowed to do so. She approached an end-of-life clinic and it has put her on the waiting list for an appointment.

'Her mood has brightened since. She knows there is an end in sight to her suffering and this has given her comfort.'....

Significantly, many of the mentally-ill patients had already been rejected for euthanasia by their own GPs. He explained: 'If someone has cancer and the prognosis is poor, doctors will shorten their suffering by euthanasia.

'But if you cannot see what a patient is dying of, or know when they will die — it could be many years ahead if the person is mentally ill — then the doctors find it more difficult to decide whether to end a life.'

So Pleiter's team offers to fill this gap. He got into the right-to-die business when his mother suffered a stroke at 80 and was left paralysed down one half of her body. She had always told him that if such an eventuality happened, she wanted to be helped to die.

"Swiss right-to-die group gets green light for new suicide room"

"I expect that we will go ahead with the conversion because the reason for it is clear," said Exit Managing Director Bernhard Sutter. "Patients who live in Basel, who cannot be helped at home and who cannot travel to Zurich would have a place where they can die."

Exit helps the vast majority of patients at their homes and the assisted suicide room is for people who do not have their own bed to die in.

When I read this I couldn't help think of "mattress girl".