A terminally ill grandmother who “felt like her body was punishing her” during her final months couldn’t die painlessly, according to her granddaughter.
Nicola Towse, 39, from Sharrow Vale, Sheffield, watched her nan, Betty Towse, die after she was diagnosed with a terminal illness – and speaks out strongly in favour of assisted dying.
She said: “My nan probably had eight hours where she wasn’t in significant pain.”
Miss Towse shared her story ahead of the Assisted Dying Bill, proposed by Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP for Spen Valley, which is being voted on today in the House of Commons in a free vote.
It is expected to be a tight vote, with many MPs still undecided on their stance.
Miss Towse said: “There is no amount of good quality palliative care in terms of what we can currently provide that could ensure that she wasn’t in pain.
“There were numerous times that she said she felt like her body was punishing her because she had to go through all of that right till the end.
“Hearing my Nan begging for a drink, when her secretions were so bad that had we actually facilitated that, she would have drowned.
“All the while my Nan was very conscious and aware of this happening.”
The MP for Sheffield Central, Abtisam Mohamed, has stated she will be voting against the Bill if it has a second reading.
It is because of the MP’s stance on the bill that Miss Towse said she would not be getting her vote in the future.
Miss Towse said she has a close family friend, with motor neurone disease who would have liked to go to Dignitas, but when he had enough funding to go, he was unable to physically travel by himself meaning that he couldn’t end his life.
She said: “The reality is when he is no longer able to breathe by himself he can go into a hospice, where they could take him off the breathing machine, and then they would heavily sedate him so that whilst he’s suffocating to death, he wouldn’t be aware of that.
“At the moment, when somebody is having their discussion about what palliative care they want, it comes down to where would you like to die? As opposed to the compassionate question of how would you like to die?”
If the Assisted Dying Bill passes in the House of Commons today, it won’t return to parliament until next April. MPs could then vote twice more on the Bill, and various amendments to change it. After a third reading, it will pass through the House of Lords.
