Every five years there's a survey and doctors have to report how many lives they have ended, and how. The survey captures 80 to 90 per cent of assisted deaths. In 30 years Dr Jonquiere has seen no sign of doctors abusing their ability to end life. He said abuses were more likely when assisted deaths had to be kept secret.
Knowing they could ask for help to die gave patients a sense of security. Often worry about increasing pain made their situations worse. Knowing they would not have to endure it relieved their anxiety, and they coped better.
"People can bear more suffering than they thought in the beginning."
There's quite a process before an assisted death can happen. First, the patient has to ask for it. Then there is lots of talking with the patient and their family.
"We have to make sure it's voluntary, and there's no hope for any better situation. Every doctor will seek to find another way to treat the suffering."
The process takes varying lengths of time - less if suffering is intense.
If no solution is found and the assisted death will happen, doctors have mixed feelings. On one hand, they are doing something usually outside their profession. On the other, the ability to end suffering is a gift they can give their patient. "It's never easy for a doctor to do it. My own experience is, if you feel you want to be responsible for the proper execution of the act, you must be sure that it will end in dying."
Doctors perform euthanasia by injecting patients with a substance that puts them into a deep coma. Then they are injected with a muscle relaxant that stops their heart. Doctors in these cases will prescribe an overdose, because they have to make sure it works.
Then there are assisted suicides - about one per cent of all assisted deaths. In that case the doctor watches as the patient drinks a strong barbiturate, then waits until it works. For a terminally ill person, death usually comes within 20 minutes. With a healthier person it can take hours, and if it's too slow the patient will be given an injection as well.