Testimonial – Dr. Didier Peillon was dismissed after the publication of his book “These patients that we help to die”, in which he recounts having ended the lives of patients who were terminally ill

It is a “case” that fully fits into the news. While the proposal of law concerning the right to assisted dying was adopted in a second reading, many doctors have not waited for it to help patients at the end of life. This is the case of Didier Peillon, a former doctor in intensive care, emergency services, and general medicine, who published in September 2025 These patients that we help to die (City editions).

In his work, he assumes having intentionally caused the death of patients at the end of life. A book that led to his suspension and subsequent expulsion by the Medical Order at the end of February. “The decision to expel is based on my anonymized work. There has been no investigation into my practices, no hearing with the caregivers with whom I worked, nor any complaints,” he laments.

A “help” that covers different cases

It could be “your 90-year-old grandfather or grandmother, who doesn’t recognize anyone, is bedridden, and we feed him with a spoon” and who arrives at the nursing home, who doesn’t recognize anyone, who is fed with a spoon” and who arrives at the hospital in a deteriorating state. “We’re not going to send him to intensive care, we’re going to decide on a therapeutic limitation and therefore cause his death,” describes the doctor. A decision that “no one discusses.”

Some cases are particularly striking. For example, “a patient who is drowning in his own blood, in a state of terror, in a context(…)

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