Up to four people are presumed to have chosen to die with dignity in the past one month since hospitals in South Korea carried out end-of-life care trials, government sources said Thursday.

On Oct. 20, 13 hospitals launched a program to allow terminally ill patients with no possibility of recovery to forgo treatment before the relevant law comes into force next year. The law, which will take effect in February, was passed by the National Assembly in January last year.

"The exact data cannot be released due the Ministry of Health and Welfare's policy. However, either three or four people opted to stop treatment and died since trial operations came into effect," said a ministry source asked not to be named.

During the three-month trial operations, the hospitals consulted patients or their family members about end-of-life care.

Heo Dae-sok, a professor at Seoul National Hospital, meanwhile, claimed upwards of 400 people effectively choose to die with dignity every day by refusing active treatment.

"Up to 85 percent of 500 terminally ill patients are actually dying on a daily basis by refusing treatment by making clear they do not want to be resuscitated," Heo said.

The nation's Supreme Court recognized a comatose patient's right to die with dignity in 2009 and ordered a hospital to remove her respirator, noting that continuing treatment just to prolong life without hope of recovery violates an individual's dignity. (Yonhap)