I don’t want to end up begging to die like my poor mother

DEATH is a subject none of us wants to think about, let alone discuss, but we have to accept that for all of us it is an inevitable occurrence and we need to get better at talking about dying and grief. That’s the conclusion of the Lancet Commission on the Value of Death which this week highlighted the mistaken assumption that science can defeat death. It’s ridiculous that in wealthy countries such as the UK, a disproportionate amount of spending is devoted to people who die within a year.

What is the point of overtreatment at the end of life while failing to provide adequate pain-reducing palliative care or the chance of an assisted death?

I’ve spent the past months thinking of little else in preparation for a documentary prompted by the slow passage through Parliament of Baroness Meacher’s Private Members’ Bill on assisted dying.

It has now passed its first two stages in the Lords and we’re waiting for the Committee stage where the proposals will be examined line by line. The Bill says that it should be made legal for a terminally-ill person, of sound mind, judged to have only six months to live, to get help to die with the approval of two doctors and a judge.

I do not hold out much hope as the opposition is strong, despite other countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and several U.S. states accepting that it should be legal for anyone in great pain and distress to be able to choose to end their life.

My interest in this topic began 16 years ago when my parents died within six months of each other. My mother, in the late stages of Parkinson’s disease, begged me for nearly a year to help her die. I could do nothing and she died a terrible death alone, in a care home, after more pain and misery than anyone should have to suffer.

My father, soon after, decided to end his own life. his plan was to stop eating and drinking. I found him weak and dehydrated, persuaded him to go to hospital where advanced lung cancer was diagnosed. I was lucky to find him a rare bed in a hospice where he received the best of palliative care and died in my arms within two weeks. Peaceful, dignified and loved — the way it should be. And the way I, too, want to die.

For the documentary I’ve spoken to people who oppose the idea of assisted death with concerns about the elderly or disabled being put under undue pressure, but two women have convinced me that my support of the Meacher Bill is completely justified.

Win Crew is a fit and sparky 90-year-old. In 2003, she accompanied her husband, Reg, to Dignitas in Switzerland — the first British person to be open about his choice to die there.

REG had motor neurone disease and was so debilitated he was unable to move his arms or legs, couldn’t hold his head up and knew the next faculty he would lose would be his voice.

he had to make the journey to Switzerland quickly before he lost the ability to consent to the lethal drink of barbiturates that would kill him.

Win had no role in administering the drug. Reg was helped by a nurse, but his last words to his wife were: ‘We should have been able to do this at home.’

Win promised to campaign for a change in the law and has done so for the nearly 20 years since her husband died. She has no hope that it will happen in her lifetime.

She is convinced by the polls that suggest up to 80 per cent of the population would be in favour of a change in the law and believes there should be a referendum on the matter. ‘Let the people decide’, she tells me.

Dr Catherine Forest is a physician in California where the law is similar to the one proposed by Baroness Meacher. She is dismissive of those objectors who claim barbiturate-induced death is not always peaceful and painless.

‘Most of our experiences with the regimen we are using are successful and good experiences,’ she says.

She also explains that in a number of cases she had prepared the prescription and left it with the patient, but the drug had not been taken. ‘It’s a question, she said, ‘of choice’.

I want that choice. I don’t want a long, painful, debilitating end of life such as my mother had. I want to be in my own bed, surrounded by the people who love me. It’s my life, conducted in the manner of my choosing, and, as Reg Crew said, I should be able to choose the manner of my death at home, too.