Costs and finances[edit]
According to Ludwig Minelli,[4] Dignitas charges its patients €4,000 (£3,182/$5,263.16) for preparation and suicide assistance, or €7,000 (£5,568/$9,210.53) in case of taking over family duties, including funerals, medical costs and official fees. Dignitas has been known to waive certain costs where there is hardship.[11] Under Swiss Law, Dignitas operates as a non-profit organization, but does not open its finances to the public,[12] which has elicited criticism from some quarters.
The membership of DIGNITAS
DIGNITAS comprises different groups of members. A small group of active members forms the basis of the association; this group created the constitution and thus set the goals for which DIGNITAS stands, and it oversees the realisation of those goals.
The committee members have the task of acting as specialist consultants to the management of the association. They are all qualified in their respective specialist fields.
In principle, all adults can become ordinary members of DIGNITAS even if they are not resident in Switzerland and have foreign citizenship. However, we must make it quite clear that DIGNITAS can only provide its members with support within Swiss national territory.
Members who want to secure the services of DIGNITAS have the right to legally effective Patient’s Instructions, to being accompanied at the end of their lives and also to assistance to an accompanied suicide. In addition they are entitled to counselling, so far as the association can provide it, in everything concerning their human dignity in life and in death. DIGNITAS attaches great importance to providing its members with contacts for whom humanity is of great value. The DIGNITAS motto “To live with dignity – To die with dignity” is a promise.
In order to join DIGNITAS, one only needs to fill in the declaration of membership and send it to DIGNITAS. DIGNITAS will confirm the acceptance of membership in writing and provide the DIGNITAS Patient’s Instructions form. With this letter the new member also receives an invoice with detailed payment instructions. The member fills in the Patient’s Instructions and returns the original to DIGNITAS. DIGNITAS registers the Patient’s Instructions and provides the member with sufficient copies. This concludes the process of becoming a member of DIGNITAS.
One-off joining fee:
Swiss Francs (CHF) 200 (approx. Euro € 208 / USD $ 233 / GBP £ 148)
Minimum annual member fee:
CHF 80 (approx. Euro € 84 / USD $ 93 / GBP £ 59)
Please do not send any money until you have received our confirmation that you have been registered as a member of DIGNITAS, and never send cheques – the fees which banks charge in order to cash cheques are extremely high. You will receive an invoice with detailed payment information.
Address:
DIGNITAS
P.O. Box 17
8127 Forch
Switzerland
Telephone: +41 43 366 10 70
Fax: +41 43 366 10 79
Internet: www.dignitas.ch
E-mail: dignitas@dignitas.ch
Bank accounts:
Bank: Postfinance, Oberstrasse 149, 9020 St. Gallen, Switzerland
Account no.: 87-64492-2
Bank sorting code: 9000
IBAN: CH79 0900 0000 8706 4492 2
BIC / SWIFT: POFICHBEXXX
For payments in Euro only:
Bank: Commerzbank, Berlin, Germany
Account no.: 16 5.031.809.08 6850
BLZ: 10040000
IBAN: DE95 1004 0000 0806 0683 00
BIC / SWIFT: COBADEBBXXX
Payments are also welcome via PayPal:
www.PayPal.com to our e-mail-address dignitas@dignitas.ch (please add 5 % to the payment in order to cover the fees of PayPal)
As far as possible, please always remit Swiss Francs (CHF) to our Swiss bank ac-count at Postfinance
Secretary-General and Management:
Ludwig A. Minelli, lawyer, Forch
