Cherryl Barassi relished life. Now, she says it is time to go

Cherryl Barassi has had enough.

After a rich and full life, and last year’s loss of her beloved husband, AFL legend Ron, Cherryl’s own declining health has left her wanting out.“I’ve had a look at my future and I don’t like it,” she says in a shaky but strident voice. “I’m not depressed; I’m just sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

In fact, she has already tried to end it all.

Cherryl Barassi at home in St Kilda last month.Credit: Simon Schluter

Cherryl’s health is fading. An old whiplash injury has damaged nerves in her neck, affecting her arms, hands, digestion, speech and ability to write.

She does not qualify for help under Victoria’s voluntary assisted dying laws, which were trailblazing seven years ago but which are now conservative by interstate and international standards.

Last month, weeks out from her 80th year, she set up a comfortable bed in her bathroom, took an overdose of medication and left a farewell note with clear instructions to let her die.

“In case it is comforting to anyone,” says Cherryl, “they should know that I felt positive and grateful for the life I’ve had as I put myself off to sleep.”

But with extraordinary timing, a dear friend and neighbour died in hospital the same day. The neighbour’s partner wanted to let Cherryl know of the loss in person.

When there was no answer at her door, the neighbour let himself in. He found Cherryl unconscious, and immediately called an ambulance. In his distress, he missed the note.

Cherryl and Ron Barassi at home in 2005.Credit: Craig Sillitoe

“The next day, thwarted by fate, I woke up in a hospital bed,” recalls Cherryl. “I thought, if this is heaven, I’d rather be in the other place.”

A bizarre turn of events has given her unexpected time for a little campaigning.

The Age has spoken to Cherryl’s doctor, who is aware of her recent experience and her intention to publicly discuss her situation.

Pets better treated

In the kitchen of her historic terrace home in St Kilda, Cherryl Barassi is not holding back. She wants to do what she can to make it easier for people to end things at a time of their choosing.

“I would love to help people exit peacefully,” she says. “I’m not recommending euthanasia; I’m just saying I want people to have freedom of choice.”

She says we treat our dogs and cats better than our human loved ones.

Cherryl on St Kilda Beach.Credit: Simon Schluter

“With our pets, we go to the vet and have them put down lovingly, and we can be with them at the end. They’re given an injection, and three seconds later gone, no pain. It’s humane and caring. I want to die like my dog.”

And, she says, that’s what Ron also wanted, but couldn’t have.

The law

This month marks the fifth anniversary of the start of Victoria’s voluntary assisted dying laws – legislated in 2017 but taking effect in 2019 – hailed by the Andrews/Allan government as one of its major achievements.

But critics, including some medicos and groups like Dying with Dignity, insist the legislation – a compromise package to win sufficient votes to pass the parliament – never went far enough in allowing end of life by choice.

Victoria has now fallen behind other jurisdictions with such laws. All other states and territories have since introduced their own versions. Last week, the ACT passed Australia’s most progressive laws to date. Among the differences to Victoria’s laws is that there is no time frame for expected death.

Under current Victorian law, people can ask for assisted dying only if they have an advanced disease likely to kill them within six months (12 months for neurodegenerative diseases). They must also be able to personally communicate their request.

Dying with Dignity is pushing for a review of the six to 12-months rule, the removal of supposed safeguards, including a gag clause making it illegal for doctors to initiate conversations with patients about voluntary dying, and for an extension of the law to cover dementia sufferers.

Inclusion of dementia under the law would require safeguards against elder abuse.

As part of the 2017 changes, the government is required to review the first four years of the voluntary assisted dying regime; a report is due by the end of the year. However, the review terms of reference dictate that it “will not consider changes to the legislation itself”, and limit it to operational issues only.

Melbourne captain Ron Barassi holds up the 1964 VFL premiership cup.

Cherryl Barassi wants our laws widened and is encouraging Victoria to study interstate and international examples.

“I want Victoria to be world’s best practice,” she says.

Backing choice

Cherryl’s view about end-of-life choice is informed in part by her experience caring first for her father as he fought a painful, three-year losing battle with cancer in the mid-1970s, and then for her close friend, 3AW talkback “king” Ormsby Wilkins, who died shortly after her father.

“My family and my husband have all been absolutely onside with the principles of dying with dignity,” she says.

In forming their views, neither Cherryl nor Ron, who died last September at the age of 87, had religion to contend with.

Cherryl’s father was Jewish, her mother Scottish and Indigenous. Neither was religious. She was born in St Kilda and flourished in its bohemian, intellectual, Jewish cultural milieu.

In her late 20s, Cherryl and Wilkins, due to his media work, travelled widely, partying with the famous and glamorous.

She says she breezed through school because she “grew up with civilised parents in a house full of books”. Ron, a keen student of philosophy and history, also loved books and, as Cherryl says, “bought books by weight”.

An iconic image of Ron Barassi kicking a brilliant goal while being tackled by Essendon’s Bob Suter in 1957.

Ron arrives

On Christmas Day in 1975, Ron Barassi came to visit a terminally ill Wilkins at Cherryl’s family home in Elwood.

She knew nothing about football. There had been a standing family joke about her fondness for arty and gay men. “My father used to joke, ‘Why don’t you bring home someone like Ron Barassi?’”

A few months after their first meeting, the two dined together at a Japanese eatery in the CBD – the beginning of a 50-year relationship. They married in 1981.

At night, they would debate politics and philosophy, agreeing that when they grew old, ill or both, they would leave the world at a time of their choosing.

After visiting many friends and family in aged care homes over the years – including close family in extreme circumstances – they would despair for people who clearly did not want to be there.

“These places are often like the land of the living dead,” says Cherryl. “Many people there want out, but we torture them with laws that don’t let people go until they’re virtually on their last breath.”

Ron made Cherryl promise she would never allow him to end up in such a place, which prompted them to make sure their family and lawyers were aware of their wishes.

Sadly, due to a fall, Ron did end up in aged care in high care.

A Demon in distress

Cherryl says her husband, the man described by Age journalist Greg Baum as the “single biggest figure in postwar Australian rules football”, died an unnecessarily slow and painful death.

Even though Ron had age-related memory loss, diagnosed as dementia, Cherryl stresses he was able to care for himself, work out at the gym, and play a mean game of chess until the final months of his life.

Less well known is that Ron also suffered from increasing problems with oedema, a heart-related condition that leads to a build-up of fluid, painful swelling and discomfort. Cherryl says this caused the fall that required Ron to go into care; massive doses of painkillers made him less coherent.

“I’d like to publicly clear this up because his memory loss was not extreme.” She says the real killer was the oedema. Eventually, he had so much swelling, he couldn’t sit, stand or lie down. “He didn’t know where to put himself.”

Ron Barassi was legendary for being tough, feisty and competitive – the bigger the challenge, the more his eyes sparkled.

In 1965, the Demon captain left his dominant, premiership-winning team to captain-coach a lowly Carlton. By 1968, they’d won a flag. He took North Melbourne from wooden spoon to their first VFL flag in 1975. He was involved as a player and coach in 17 grand finals for 10 premierships by the age of 42. But he could not beat oedema.

“It was the only time I ever heard Ron complain,” Cherryl explains. “He put his head on my shoulder and said, ‘It’s awful.’ I remember thinking, ‘It must really be awful.’”

This, despite the great work of those who cared for him daily. “The underpaid Nepalese nurses were angels.”

Cherryl pleaded with the medicos to help Ron go. “They all knew he wasn’t going to get better. In that last year, I battled this wall of bureaucracy, trying to relieve his suffering.

Ron Barassi as a young Demon and posing for a portrait in 2010.

“The doctors and health bureaucrats would say, ‘There’s nothing we can do; it’s just the law.’ And I’d say, ‘Well, the law’s not working for people.’

“I think I was the biggest nuisance they’d ever had.

“Ron had to get to the stage where doctors said, ‘He’s actively dying’ before they let him go. I said, ‘You should have done that a year ago.’”

Back to square one

At home after her attempted overdose, Cherryl is biding her time.

“I’m back at square one, and, at my age, I still don’t like the look of my future, especially under existing laws.”

While in hospital, Cherryl had to endure assessment by multiple medicos, including two teams of psychiatrists on consecutive days.

“The first team declared me sane. The second lot asked, ‘Do you have any questions for us?’ I said, ‘Yes. Do you agree with me about my right to die?’

“They looked at each other and said, ‘Yes.’ They’re in the same trap as the rest of us on this issue.”

Cherryl fears that, instead of looking after their constituents, governments are captive to churches, big pharmaceutical corporations and the aged care sector.

“They’re listening to those who make money out of unnecessarily prolonging life; they’re not listening to the people.”

She fears our freedoms are being “systematically stripped away”. “My excellent GP is restricted in what he can prescribe for me now. I guess ‘big brother’ has me on a list. I’m sure ‘big sister’ would be more compassionate.

“I will need care soon,” she says. “Please let me have the freedom to choose not to have that future. Why take up space and staff in an overburdened medical system when I don’t want to be there?”

Cherryl hopes her strong views about the right to choose a peaceful death will stimulate private and public debate.

“They’ll be coming to lynch me – you know who you are,” she laughs. “And to you, I say, ‘You’re welcome.’”

If you or anyone you know needs support call Lifeline 131 114, or Beyond Blue 1300 224 636.

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