11/05/2023
Personal choice and circumstances , so proud this is available in NZ for those that desire it. Never any judgement
Content warning: The following post contains descriptions of su***de.
"I’d like to talk to you about my Dad, Charles Cecil Kentish, who was known to everybody as Charlie.
My Dad was very active, even in his 90s he would regularly walk and cycle 5 miles.
He’d served in the Army and had run a gentleman’s clothing business for many years. Following my Mum’s death in 2010, Dad did all his own shopping and kept his bungalow in immaculate condition. He was very sociable and talkative, never someone to sit in silence, very engaged with politics and current affairs. He would regularly visit the Snetterton Motor Racing Track, one of the reasons he chose to relocate to Norfolk in his later years. He was a man who loved his food, especially his regular half pint of Guinness and lunch at the local pub with his neighbour.
That was NOT the man who was discovered in his garage on the 13th of November 2016 just after 4.00p.m, having taken his own life by hanging at the age of 94, months after being diagnosed with terminal oesophageal cancer.
This was not the end my father deserved and I feel passionately that he should have been spared those final few weeks and had the choice to be assisted to die peacefully when the time was right for him.
He had been diagnosed in January 2016 after struggling to swallow for some time. The prognosis was not good and he was clear from the start that did not want to undergo invasive treatments or procedures that would only prolong his life by a matter of months.
Over the following months Dad endured awful symptoms. The tumour caused him to regurgitate food and drink, and caused horrible secretions which he had to regularly expectorate. This prevented him from sleeping through the night and also made it difficult to socialise with his friends in the way he’d done before his diagnosis.
He lost the ability to swallow which meant he could not eat any of the foods he enjoyed and hated the build-up drinks he was given instead. His weight dropped from 10 stone to 5, and he became too weak to do any of the things he loved.
My Dad received excellent support from his GP, the district nursing team, hospital palliative care team, community palliative care nurses, dietician and occupational therapist, but he felt so frustrated. He was always polite but would tell them “there’s nothing you can do to help me”.
At one stage when the wonderful palliative consultant asked him if there was anything she could do, he replied “you could put an injection in my hand so I can finish myself off. I know you can’t do that, but all I want to do is die.” He would regularly say to me and to his close friends he just wanted to go to sleep and not wake up.
For him it wasn’t just the physical symptoms but also the mental torture. He used to love watching sports on TV but couldn’t even do that, because he felt tormented by all the food adverts. About 3 weeks before his death Dad knew he was losing his dignity, and particularly bowel control, which was especially hard to bear for such a proud man of his generation.
The effects of Dad’s cancer robbed him of the control and independence that he valued in his life. After 94 years of living on his own terms he wanted to die on his own terms. He knew about the palliative care that was available to him, but he also knew its limitations – it couldn’t make his symptoms disappear and he just didn’t want to spend his final months like that.
On the day of Dad’s death I had tried to reach him but he didn’t pick up after several phone calls, so I asked his neighbours, who were great friends of Dad, to check in on him, as they did regularly. Peter and John went round and discovered a note on the front door, saying that he had taken his own life, to call the police, and he would be found in the garage. Despite this note Peter and John went in and found Dad hanging from a rafter. They were distraught. The police were called and a first responder arrived who had to cut my Dad down.
On the morning before Dad took his own life, he had cleaned the house, done his laundry, emptied the fridge. He had clearly planned it out to have minimum impact on others; he would have been devastated to learn of the effect his death had on the people close to him and his local community.
A few days after his death I found a note to me:
“###
Please phone the police
The garage door and side door are open.
I will sign off now as I am unable to cope with this illness.
All my love to you Barbara, and thank you for all help you have given me.
Pa ###
Charles C Kentish”
Then came the agonising wait for the inquest, an intense and stressful process which took the best part of six months, which I feel further compounded my grief.
What constantly comes to my mind, is that none of this need have happened. My Dad should have been able to decide when the time was right for him and be supported to die on his own terms. We could have got his neighbours and family together for a final goodbye, visited the Snetterton race track one last time, and then let him go to sleep peacefully in his own bed.
I ask MPs to listen to my story and reflect on whether the current law is working. I hope you will agree that we need a deeper understanding of the impact it has on terminally ill people, their loved ones and local community and find out how many more experiences like mine are happening across the country. I know I am not alone."
- Barbara Wall
