The son of a woman who died alone on her bathroom floor having taken her own life as she faced “excruciating pain” from a nerve condition has described legalising assisted dying as a “huge opportunity for the country” which he said is long overdue.
Maureen Smith dressed in her best clothes and put on her favourite jewellery before taking an overdose in her home earlier this year having lived with trigeminal neuralgia which sees sufferers endure an electric shock-like pain in their bodies in sudden attacks which her family said would sometimes see her fall to the floor.
Her son, George Smith, said the 80-year-old, from Essex, had been denied the opportunity to have a peaceful death surrounded by loved ones, due to the law as it stands.
The family had spent Christmas together and she had been in “really good form”, Mr Smith said, but they later learned her “excruciating” pain had become unbearable and she died in January.
She had previously undergone a “hugely invasive operation” to alleviate the pain, which had given her relief for some years, but her son said the attacks had returned and she “did not want to go through that (surgery) again”.
In an interview with the PA news agency, in which he said he was speaking publicly about his family’s experience for the first time, he said: “She was quite vocal about that, but we hadn’t appreciated that she was at that stage when she took her life.
“We were aware that the pain was coming back, but she was telling us that it was manageable. But after she had taken her life, it transpired in her beautiful, articulate letter, explaining that it had just got too much, and she had kept that from us.”
Mr Smith, a 56-year-old father-of-one who lives in Barnes, west London, said his mother, who had owned a record shop, was a “very positive, upbeat person who lived a simple, basic life, but a happy life” and said he wanted to make clear she was not depressed.
He said: “In spite of her condition – she had multiple sclerosis from a young age, and so throughout my life, more or less – she didn’t let that impede her life.
“And that’s what I’d like to get across. My mother was not a depressed woman at all. On the contrary, yeah, she considered herself very lucky.”
As MPs prepare to consider a new bill on choice at the end of life, Mr Smith appealed to them to listen to stories like his and vote for new legislation.
He told PA: “As a family, what we want to get across is choice. It’s a personal choice, and that my mother would have, and us as a family, would have loved to have said goodbyes.
“We so wish she hadn’t done it on her own, but we do feel lucky, in as much that she appears to have died peacefully.”
Campaigners opposed to a change in the law have voiced concerns about some groups, including the disabled and the elderly, being vulnerable to coercion.
He said the most vulnerable in society must “absolutely” be protected “and the law must be robust enough that it covers that”, but he added there must be a way to offer choice to people like his mother.
He said: “I see it (the bill) as a huge opportunity for the country, and it’s long overdue. Everything I’ve read is that public opinion is leaning towards this, and anecdotally, as a man in his late 50s, I’m hearing more and more friends of mine in similar positions. They were all feeling the same way that the law needs to be changed.”
The detail of the proposed legislation is expected at a later date, with Labour MP Kim Leadbeater having pledged to consult widely before bringing it to Parliament for debate and a vote, but Mr Smith said it must extend to those with incurable suffering.
He said: “If you think about it, incurable pain is almost worse than terminal illness, because with terminal illness, at least you know there’s an end, whereas with incurable pain there’s no end in sight.”
On his feelings about how his mother died, he said: “I am angry in that she had to die alone on her bathroom floor, but I’m at peace because she was lucky – and that sounds ironic – that she appears to have died peacefully.
“She put on her best clothes, she put on her favourite jewellery. She made a bed on the floor of her small bathroom.”
But he said his mother would also have been “acutely aware of the collateral damage that she was causing by doing it in this way”, saying the family have had to go through an inquest due to the circumstances.
He said: “Of course, we would have liked it, you know, another way.
“In a medical environment where there would have been guarantees, where we could have been with her and shared our last moments, if that’s what she had wanted, which we think she would have done, and we as a family certainly would have wanted that.
“And we were denied all of that. And this law, if it’s widened to cover incurable pain, we’d have been protected and we would have got that and that’s what my mum would have wanted. And that’s certainly what I would want if I find myself in a similar position.”
Trevor Moore, chairman of campaign group My Death, My Decision, said: “Maureen’s heart-wrenching ordeal exposes the cruelty of our current law on assisted dying. Faced with a lonely and devastating decision, Maureen took matters into her own hands and her death still haunts the loved ones she left behind.
“Sadly, this tragic experience is not an isolated case, as our blanket ban on assisted dying in the UK continues to inflict unnecessary suffering on countless individuals up and down the country.”
Christian Action Research and Education (Care) has argued that it is “vitally important” people get the right care but that “assisted suicide is not the response dying people deserve”.
Ross Hendry, its chief executive, said: “This practice denies the intrinsic value of human life and sends a message that some lives aren’t worth living.
“Disabled people, professionals working with vulnerable adults, and many others find the prospect of a law change frightening.
“No number of safeguards could remove the threat of vulnerable people being coerced into ending their lives.
“Neither could they prevent people choosing to die because they feel like a burden, or because they don’t have support.”
