Lydie Imhoff, a 43-year-old Frenchwoman, is considering euthanasia in Belgium.

For this hemiplegic from birth, visually impaired and losing the use of her limbs, it is like "an emergency exit".

"Before I had the upper hand over my disability, now I don't have it at all," explains the forty-year-old in the psychiatrist's office she came to consult in Brussels.

Strapped in her wheelchair, Lydie Imhoff, who came from Besançon (east) with her caregiver, unfolded for 45 minutes the story of a life of suffering, marked, in addition to illness, by domestic violence and loneliness.

A story interspersed with humorous strokes, which relax the atmosphere and sometimes disconcert. Like when she evokes her "little roommate in freedom" in her apartment. Actually a rabbit.

Born prematurely, after a pregnancy of five and a half months, Lydie was born with a stroke that resulted in the paralysis of the entire left half of her body.

She did not want her disability to deprive her of riding a horse, her hobby. But in 2009 a heavy fall caused him a head trauma and broke several cervical vertebrae. "Seventeen fractures in total," she says.

France's Lydie Imhoff, hemiplegic by birth, who is considering euthanasia in Belgium, on March 16, 2023 in Brussels © Simon Wohlfahrt / AFP

The medical record read by the psychiatrist, Dr. Marc Reisinger, evokes a "tetraparesis", a pathology that affects the muscles of all four limbs.

"Not for now"

Lydie Imhoff assures that she does not want euthanasia in the short term - "it is not for now" - but is worried about the evolution of her disability, and tremors become more frequent.

The trigger to initiate the process in Belgium was the loss of sensitivity in her right hand, which now prevents her from reading Braille writing, she explains.

"I collapsed. My fingers are all I have left to be still autonomous!"

Putting words into action, she evokes the difficulty of bringing a glass or bottle to her mouth, which she must wedge in her arm by bending her elbow.

The young woman jokes about the "beautiful bowls" taken while trying to do without her chair.

She admits to having built "a shell" to try to relativize this "habit of pain". But "it's not easy to do the hard way," she says, because some areas of the body "cause a lot of pain".

France's Lydie Imhoff, hemiplegic by birth, who is considering euthanasia in Belgium, on March 16, 2023 in Brussels © Simon Wohlfahrt / AFP

The expression of this distress convinces Dr. Reisinger that the request is justified: "For me it's OK (...) I think we'll be able to help you do what you want and when you want."

The Belgian law of 2002 that decriminalized euthanasia requires at least two concordant opinions for the injection to take place, that of the specialist complementing the diagnosis of a general practitioner.

The text also stipulates that the request must respond to "constant, unbearable and unrelievable" suffering, resulting from a "serious and incurable" condition.

- 'Freedom of choice' -

Last year, 2,966 euthanasia cases were performed in Belgium, an increase of 10% compared to 2021, according to the Federal Commission for Control and Evaluation. Cancers remain the number one reason given, ahead of "polypathologies".

Among these patients, 53 resided in France, according to the same source. The French are, by far, the first foreign nationality to take the plunge.

French Lydie Imhoff, hemiplegic by birth, who is considering euthanasia in Belgium, meets psychiatrist Marc Reisinger, on March 16, 2023 in Brussels © Simon Wohlfahrt / AFP

"The debate is skating in France, and there is a lot of despair among some people. As a result, we feel a stronger pressure here, "says lawyer Jacqueline Herremans, who sits on this control body.

In France a "citizens' convention" bringing together citizens drawn by lot is due to deliver an opinion in early April to advise the government on the end of life, after months of debate.

Current legislation allows "deep and continuous sedation until death" under certain conditions, but not active assistance in dying for terminally ill and suffering patients.

For Marc Reisinger, offering "freedom of choice" to these patients nevertheless relieves the anguish that very often accompanies their physical suffering.

France's Lydie Imhoff, hemiplegic by birth, uses her smartphone with voice assistance, on March 16, 2023 in Brussels © Simon Wohlfahrt / AFP

And the doctor must be able to be present until the end to reduce suffering, insists the psychiatrist.

"Why would he resign at the last moment, the most crucial of all, saying +I don't care about your suffering anymore+? It doesn't make sense!"

© 2023 AFP