Udine, Italy - A comatose woman at the centre of a bitter euthanasia debate in Italy arrived at the old-peoples home Tuesday where doctors plan to switch off her life-support system.

Pro-life activists heckled the ambulance carrying 38-year old Eluana Englaro as it left a clinic in the northern city of Lecco late Monday night, shouting: "Don't let her die!"

The case of Englaro, who has spent the last 17 years in a vegetative state after a car accident, has reignited debate in Catholic Italy over euthanasia and its legal technicalities.