A few months before Björn Natthiko Lindeblad chose to end his life, surrounded by friends and family in northern Halland, he contacted the doctor Staffan Bergström.
- He simply asked if he had to go to Switzerland to end his life or if he could in any way be helped in Sweden, says the doctor who is also chairman of the national association The right to a dignified death.
Bergström has previously helped another ALS patient to die in Sweden by giving him a lethal dose of sleeping pills, and for that reason has a dormant disciplinary matter with the National Board of Health and Welfare and risks losing his medical ID.
Active euthanasia not allowed
It is forbidden, according to Swedish law, as a doctor to participate in ending a sick or injured person's life, even if that is what the patient wants.
- It is a big change in society if doctors are now to deviate from the ethical rules that say that we must cure and alleviate, and not contribute to speeding up death, says Torsten Mossberg, chairman of the Swedish Medical Association.
Today, doctors can give seriously ill patients overdoses or morphine so that they can sleep to death in hospitals, but they are not allowed to prescribe drugs that help patients sleep to death at home, which Bergström is strongly critical of.
- I think it is hypocrisy that you do not see the similarities and put the patient's suffering in the first place.
I think that is bad ethics, he says.
The Swedish Medical Association against state investigation
The parliamentary parties are today divided on the issue of active euthanasia.
Some are against, while others want the pros and cons investigated.
The Swedish Medical Association also assesses that the review published by the Swedish Medical Ethics Council five years ago needs to be supplemented, but is at the same time opposed to a state investigation.
- We think that it is enough that we deliver good care in consultation with the patient and based on the legislation we have.
However, four out of ten doctors say they are in favor of legalization, according to a survey conducted by the association last year and published in Läkartidningen.