Dr Gustavo Quintana walks out of a modest, two-floor apartment building in southern Bogota. Inside his black doctor’s bag are vials containing anesthesia and muscle relaxants, a syringe and a rubber tourniquet.
The man known in Colombia as Dr Death has just ended the life of his 234th patient: a middle-aged woman suffering from incurable stomach cancer.
For years, Quintana and a handful of other physicians have been performing what they consider mercy killings in a semi-clandestine state, at risk of prosecution and amid widespread rejection from other doctors and church officials.