Belgian nurses and social workers specialising in end-of-life care are leaving palliative care units because they are becoming transformed into "euthanasia institutions".

A large number of hospital staff are leaving this sector because they do not want their work reduced to preparing patients and their families for lethal injections.

These findings were highlighted by Professor Benoit Beuselinck, consultant oncologist at the hôpital de l’université catholique de Louvain (Louvain Catholic University Hospital), who added that nurses see euthanasia requests as "an impossible burden" "in total contradiction to their initial desire to administer genuine palliative care to end-of-life patients".