Aurelia Brouwers argued she was competent to make the decision. But could a death wish have been a symptom of her psychiatric illness?
"I think you never can be 100% sure of that," says Kit Vanmechelen. "But you must have done everything to help them diminish the symptoms of their pathology. In personality disorders a death wish isn't uncommon. If that is consistent, and they've had their personality disorder treatments, it's a death wish the same as in a cancer patient who says, 'I don't want to go on to the end.'"
This view is not universally held by psychiatrists in the Netherlands.
"How could I know - how could anybody know - that her death wish was not a sign of her psychiatric disease? The fact that one can rationalise about it, does not mean it's not a sign of the disease," says psychiatrist Dr Frank Koerselman, one of the Netherlands' most outspoken critics of euthanasia in cases of mental illness.
He argues psychiatrists should never collude with clients who claim they want to die.
"It is possible not to be contaminated by their lack of hope. These patients lost hope, but you can stay beside them and give them hope. And you can let them know that you will never give up on them," he says.