Some might have already translated the attachment I shared on this thread but for the ones who didn't, these are the last words (sept. '18) spoken about barbiturate intake (mostly N) in our doc magazine (this one is not public available yet);
How quickly does death occur after assistance with suicide?
We have two exploratory studies that answer the question of how quickly death occurs when the patient has taken the euthanatic himself. The first study is a questionnaire study into experiences of doctors with the methods of "injecting" and "drinking", the other study is our own study under 7 doctor's practices (not previously published).
Questionnaire investigation.
For the first study, doctors received a questionnaire from the pharmacist in the period 2013-2015; 20% of these doctors returned the form. They reported 165 cases of patients who had chosen to take the euthanatic themselves. None of these patients had medical complications; 3 of them were in a coma before the 100 ml euthanasia drink was emptied. In 135 patients (82%), death occurred within 30 minutes. Few findings were presented in this report about the condition that led to the death wish and the course of suicide assistance. It was not possible to determine why death occurred in more than 30 minutes in 18% of patients.
Own exploratory research.
We have collected data from 3 general practitioners and 4 specialists; we have no personal ties or special relationships with these 7 doctors. The 3 general practitioners offer assistance with suicide in the case of a euthanasia request - see info Instruction for patients who receive assistance with suicide - and only inject the euthanatic when there are contraindications for assistance with suicide; the 4 specialists leave the choice of the euthanasia method to the patient. Given the particularly positive attitude of general practitioners with regard to assisted suicide, this dataset is not representative of the medical community as a whole.
The dataset contains 61 anonymous cases of suicide assistance over the period 2002-2018, including 30 cases from 1 practice that always used secobarbital (up to 2012 9 g per patient, in 18 patients; since then 15 g per patient). Further patient characteristics, such as age, body weight, the specific nature of the suffering involved and the doctor's preparation for euthanasia, were not systematically recorded. The medical complications nausea and vomiting had not occurred. Of the 61 patients, 60 were in a coma within 15 minutes; 1 patient had a heavy snoring, 2 had to gag a few times without vomiting. These 60 patients died within 30 minutes. The patient who had not died within 30 minutes was still alive after 45 minutes and was subsequently given intravenous euthanatics
If we add the findings of the first study to our study, we come to a number of 195 patients (= 135 + 60) who had died within 30 minutes, to a total of 226 patients (= 165 + 61) who received help received by suicide. In other words: in 86% or 6 out of 7 patients, death occurred after assistance with suicide within 30 minutes. In our opinion, this means that the predictability of a death without complications or pain is high when the euthanatic is given, when assisted with suicide, in a dosage (15 g) in accordance with the KNMG / KNMP guideline from 2012.