Suicide tourism have repeatedly criticized suicide assistance for foreigners, branding it "suicide tourism" ("Sterbetourismus" in German). In 2007, Dignitas launched an effort to gain legal permission for healthy foreigners, including married couples committed to suicide pacts, to end their lives in Switzerland. In July 2009, British conductor Sir Edward Downes and his wife Joan died together at a suicide clinic outside Zürich "under circumstances of their own choosing." Sir Edward was not terminally ill, but his wife was diagnosed with rapidly developing cancer. In March 2010, the PBS Frontline TV program in the United States showed a documentary called "The Suicide Tourist"
Rupert Downes Australian physicians, the surgeon Sir Thomas Dunhill and Neil Hamilton Fairley, an expert on tropical diseases. The outbreak of the Second World War caused Downes to curtail the North American leg of his tour, and return to Australia in October 1939. Downes, in his role as DGMS, pressed for the construction of major military hospitals in the capital cities. He argued that, after the war, they should be handed over to the Repatriation Commission for the care of sick and disabled ex-service personnel. Despite strong opposition on the grounds of cost, Downes won his case in October 1940. Time soon