Patient with rare heart condition dies after asking doctors to turn off her pacemaker in the UK's 'first assisted dying' case.

A female patient with a heart condition died after she asked doctors to turn off her pacemaker in what is believed to be the UK's first assisted dying case.

Nina Adamowicz, who died last October, had her pacemaker fitted in 1996.

Her doctor, not yet named, agreed to switch off her pacemaker last year.

Active euthanasia and assisted suicide are still illegal under English law.

Nina Adamowicz, who is believed to have died last October, had her first pacemaker fitted in 1996.

She had a heart attack ten years later but by late 2014, her heart was working at less than 10 per cent capacity.

Adamowicz spoke to the BBC in January 2015 and described her desire to end her own life.

The patient, then 71, told the BBC: 'I strongly believe that I have the right to decide if I want it [the pacemaker] on or off.'

She added: 'I feel that [there is] life, and death is other side of the same coin.

'I'd like to know what is there.

The doctor, whose name is not yet known, and her local hospital trust's ethics committee agreed to switch off her pacemaker after a series of medical examinations and psychological tests.

After gaining her doctor's approval, Adamowicz went into her local hospice where her doctor turned the pacemaker off. She died the next day.