Belgian doctors are planning to kill a perfectly healthy 24-year-old woman by euthanasia because she is suffering from 'suicidal thoughts'.

It is estimated that five people a day in Belgium die with the assistance of doctors, ranging from those with terminal illness to others with chronic, but not life threatening ailments.

Now, a woman, known only as the fictitious name Laura, has been told she qualifies for euthanasia, despite not having a terminal disease.

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Laura, 24, admitted she has wanted to end her own life since she was a young child (picture posed by model)

The young woman spoke with Belgian newspaper De Morgen about her decision. She said she was convinced that she had to die since her childhood claiming 'life, that's not for me'.

Laura told the newspaper that these are among her earliest thoughts as she had a troubled childhood. She admitted that her arrival was not planned by her parents and that her father drank too much.

She eventually moved in with her grandparents, but this did not diminish her self-destructive thoughts.

Laura admitted that her grandparents gave her 'security, peace, and structure,' but that was not enough.

The young woman has been a patient of a psychiatric institution since she was 21, where she made friends with a fellow suicidal girl, who died from euthanasia 18-months ago. Since

She said: 'Even though my childhood certainly contributed to my suffering, I am convinced that I had had this death wish even though I grew up with a quiet, stable family.'

Laura said she has enjoyed the process of planning her own funeral but admits that her death will be difficult for her grandparents and her mother.

She said: 'When I was six, I was once in a room full of friends where guns were located. I remember I was able to hold one and was given directions. "It allows me to meet my end," I thought. "So it may be easy." I thought then the guns were not loaded, but later I learned that it was. If I had known this at that time, I might have pulled the trigger. I can easily imagine.

Belgium's leading euthanasia doctor Wim Distelmans, pictured, arranged a symposium on the practice in Auschwitz last year

'Death feels to me not as a choice. If I had a choice, I would choose a bearable life, but I have done everything and that was unsuccessful. I played all my life with these thoughts of suicide, I have also done a few attempts. But then there is someone who needs me, and I don’t want to hurt anyone. That has always stopped me.

'What I’m going to say on that last moment, I do not know yet. I have extensively written ideas in letters to my friends. I think everything has already been appointed. Maybe I will finally figure it out with these words, "Those who are about to die salute you."'

According to the most recent figures, the numbers of people choosing to end their own lives has surged by 27 per cent over the previous 12 months.

Figures showed that in 2013 there were 1,816 cases of euthanasia, compared with 1.432 in 2012.

Of the total number of cases in 2013, 51.7 per cent were male patients and 48.3 per cent were female.

Elderly people aged between 70 and 90 years made up just over half (53.5 per cent) of the total. Those aged between 60 and 70 years represented 21 per cent and those aged over 90 years seven per cent.

The under-60s accounted for just 15 per cent of the total number of cases.

In 2003 Belgium was the second country in the world to legalise euthanasia after Holland liberalised the law a year earlier, becoming the first country since Nazi Germany to permit the practice.

Over the past decade the numbers of Belgians dying by euthanasia has crept up incrementally.

There was a 25 per cent increase in the number of euthanasia deaths from 2011 to 2012, soaring from 1,133 to 1,432, a figure representing about two per cent of all deaths in the country.

In February Belgium extended euthanasia to children who are terminally-ill and in a state of unrelieved suffering.

They must also be judged to have ‘capacity of discernment’, affirmed by a psychologist, and the consent of their parents before they can die by injection.

Anti-euthanasia campaigners have argued that such safeguards have consistently proved to be meaningless.

They say that besides patients who are gravely ill euthanasia is used increasingly on people with depression or non-terminal conditions.

Those killed include deaf twins Marc and Eddy Verbessem, 45, who were granted their wish to die in December 2012 after they learned they would likely to become blind.

Belgium's leading euthanasia doctor Wim Distelmans, pictured, arranged a symposium on the practice in Auschwitz, which attracted major international condemnation.

Last year Nancy Verhelst, 44, a transsexual, was also killed by euthanasia after doctors botched her sex change operation, leaving her with physical deformities she felt made her look like a ‘monster’.

New figures have shown that five Belgians die with the assistance of doctors each day (pic posed by models)

However, some reports claim that Belgium's liberalised Euthanasia regime has led to some patients being killed without their permission.

An academic report found that around one in every 60 deaths of a patient under GP care involves someone who has not requested euthanasia.

Half of the patients killed without giving their consent were over the age of 80, the study found, and two thirds of them were in hospital and were not suffering from a terminal disease such as cancer.

In about four out of five of the cases, the death was not discussed with patients subjected to ‘involuntary euthanasia’ because they were either in a coma, they were diagnosed with dementia, or because doctors decided it would not be in their best interests to discuss the matter with them.

Very often doctors would not inform the families of plans to lethally inject a relation because they considered it a medical decision to be made by themselves alone, the report published by the Journal of Medical Ethics said.

The report raised new questions over Belgium’s increasingly controversial 13-year-old euthanasia law, which has won wide acceptance from the medical establishment, and which now allows even children to be killed by doctors.

Report author Professor Raphael Cohen-Almagor of Hull University said: ‘The decision as to which life is no longer worth living is not in the hands of the patient but in the hands of the doctor.’

‘It should also be noted that deliberately ending the lives of patients without their request is taking place in Belgium more than in all other countries that document such practices, including the Netherlands.

‘It is worrying that some physicians take upon themselves the responsibility to deliberately shorten patients’ lives without a clear indication from the patients that this is what they would want.’

The Israeli-born politics and philosophy professor added: ‘The Belgian population should be aware of the present situation and know that if their lives may come to the point where physicians think they are not worth living, in the absence of specific living wills advising physicians what to do then, they might be put to death.’

Belgium’s Euthanasia Act restricts the practice of mercy killing to adults and ‘emancipated children’ who are suffering unbearably and who are able to consent. It remains officially illegal for doctors to kill patients who have not given their consent to death.

The study found, however, that many GPs are killing their patients without consent and that lack of consent may be more common than officially-approved deaths.

‘Given that ending patients’ lives without request is more common than euthanasia, it is suggested to urge the Belgian medical profession to put this issue high on its agenda,’ Professor Cohen-Almagor said.