Under the Netherlands’ 2002 Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide Act, doctors may grant patients’ requests to die without fear of prosecution as long as they observe certain guidelines. The request must be made voluntarily by an informed patient who is undergoing suffering that is both lasting and unbearable. Doctors must also obtain the written affirmation of a second, independent physician that the case meets the requirements and report all such deaths to the authorities for review.

Dr. de Jong said Dutch physicians typically euthanize patients by injecting a barbiturate to induce sleep, followed by a powerful muscle relaxant like curare. For assisted suicide, the doctor prescribes a drug to prevent vomiting, followed by a lethal dose of barbiturates.

Almost 80 percent of all such deaths take place in patients’ homes, according to the Royal Dutch Medical Association. In 2010, the latest year for which data are available, doctors reported 3,136 notifications cases of “termination of life on request.” Serious illnesses — late-stage cancer, typically — lie behind a vast majority.

Euthanasia is responsible for about 2 percent of all deaths annually in the Netherlands, according to Eric van Wijlick, a policy adviser for the association.

Euthanasia is typically carried out by the general practitioners who serve as the backbone of the country’s universal health care system, doctors who often have enjoyed long relationships with their patients and know their feelings well. Mr. van Wijlick said the euthanasia law was possible because of “the moderate and open climate we have in the Netherlands, with respect for other points of view,” and acknowledged that it would be difficult to carry out elsewhere, because everyone in the Netherlands has access to health care, an income and housing.

“There are no economic reasons to ask for euthanasia,” he said, something that might not be true in the United States, with its for-profit health care system.

The mobile teams were needed, Dr. de Jong said, because many general practitioners, either for moral reasons or perhaps because of uncertainty about the law, refused to help suffering patients to die after it had become too late to find another doctor. The mobile teams will work to help them do so, she said.