Why this Gold Coast woman wants in the right to die

The decision by the Queensland Government to include assisted dying in an aged care inquiry this month has sparked a controversial debate, but for this Gold Coast woman, the right to die is far more personal.

A CONTROVERSIAL decision by the Queensland Government to include assisted dying in an aged care inquiry has sparked debate across the Gold Coast.

But for Elanora woman Lorraine Allen-Hider, supporting people’s right to choose — with their doctor — the right time to die is driven by grim personal experience.

For two long, agonising years Mrs Allen-Hider watched her first husband deteriorate after a tragic accident in 1981, which left him trapped in a waking coma.

POLITICIANS NEED TO CATCH UP ON EUTHANASIA DEBATE

Lorraine Allen-Hider wants to see a change in the right to die on the Gold Coast. Picture: Jerad Williams

Now facing a chronic medical battle of her own, she wants to be given the right to go out on her own terms.

“John was a very active man,” she said of her first husband, who suffered massive brain stem damage in a boating accident at 40 years of age.

“He was a healthy, active bricklayer at the time and all of a sudden he was in a coma, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t feed himself.

“The only thing he could do when he saw me or our daughter was cry.

“It was the most distressing thing I have ever seen.”

For more than two years Ms Allen-Hider made the pilgrimage to her husband’s hospital bedside, while raising her daughter and working full time.

Lorraine Allen-Hider watched her first husband slowly pass away in a waking coma over 2 years, and she herself is now suffering from a painfully chronic disease. Picture: Jerad Williams

“They assured me that he had no concept of time. I hope that was the truth because it was impossible to be there all the time for him,’’ she said.

“He never would have wanted to have gone like that. It would have been torture.”

He died in hospital in 1983 after his kidneys failed.

Since his death she has been a member of Dying With Dignity, which is lobbying the Government for legislative change to allow people in certain circumstances the right to choose when they can die.

Now suffering from psoriatic arthritis at age 69, Mrs Allen-Hider’s quality of life has progressively worsened as the disease takes hold.

After also watching her parents endure slow and agonising deaths from cancer, she believes it is time people are given a choice on when they should die.

“It is a very personal decision, not something I would ever force down somebody else’s neck,” she said.

“It should be a decision between a patient and a doctor.

“Unless you have actively been through these things you can’t understand that need for empathy for someone at the end of their life.”

GET FULL DIGITAL ACCESS FOR 50C A DAY

Happily married again and still looking to the future, Mrs Allen-Hider said she is a way off wanting to make the choice for herself.

“There were times during recovery from my last injury where it was just such intense pain, I said to my husband they don’t even put animals through this, but I knew I would get through it,” she said.

“It is when there isn’t an end that I want to know the option is there. I wouldn’t suggest it is for everybody.

“I don’t even know if I would go through with it, but why shouldn’t I have the right to consider myself?

“I believe there do need to be guidelines but it turns me grey being at the mercy of politicians and having it dragged through parliament.

“(But) at least there is something happening.”

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the issue of end-of-life-care touched every single Queenslander.

“That not only includes aged care, but palliative care and dying with dignity,” she said.

“I have watched carefully and closely as other jurisdictions have faced this issue.

“I have listened to those who have watched their loved ones suffer.”

Lobby group Cherish Life Queensland however has slammed the inquiry as the expansion of “state-sanctioned killing”.

“Legalisation of euthanasia would expose the vulnerable elderly and terminally ill to pressure — real or imagined — to do the ‘right thing’ and request death so they are not a ‘burden on their family’,” Cherish Life president Dr Donna Purcell said.

“Sending the message that some lives are not worth living is also utterly counter-productive to combating Australia’s suicide epidemic.

“Doctors should kill the pain, not the patient.”

The inquiry is calling for Queenslanders to have their say on the issue.