Sarah helped her friend end her life. Here’s what it taught her about death

In the end, there were no grand speeches. Annie Werner had said everything she needed to say.

“Everyone knew that she loved them, her whole life was love as a verb,” said her friend Sarah Barry. “It was an ordinary day, but we all knew that by the end of that day, Annie would no longer be alive.”

Werner, 46, died on August 25 at home in the Bega Valley, surrounded by her partner Genevieve, their two children, and a chosen family of friends.

Annie Werner (left) with friend and mortality doula Sarah Barry at Werner’s “living wake” last year. Credit: Jay Black

Barry mixed the lethal substance that would end her friend’s life. The pair had known each other since the mid-2000s (Barry’s partner was Werner’s tattoo artist), but their relationship took on a different dimension after Werner was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer in 2018. Barry became her “mortality doula” – a companion to help her navigate the final stages of her life.

After Werner’s cancer metastasised to her liver and bones, she held a living wake. In a piece for The Guardian, Werner said she wanted people to say nice things about her while she was still alive: “If I knew I was going to die anyway, why not get together beforehand and have a beautiful party?”

A few months later, voluntary assisted dying (VAD) became legal in NSW, and Werner applied. Pharmacists flew to the far south coast to deliver the lethal substance in July, allowing Werner to plan her death at a time and place of her choosing, without intervention from medical personnel.

“I think that’s such a powerful thing that VAD affords people ... they get to die in their homes as they wish, without having to have nurses coming in and out,” Barry said.

In the seven months after VAD became legal in NSW, 1141 people applied to use it and 398 people died after an independent board deemed them eligible to take the lethal substance, data published on Friday revealed.

In the board’s first annual report, chair Jenni Millbank said the program had proven both accessible and strongly safeguarded, but noted that the Commonwealth’s criminal act, which prevents doctors raising euthanasia during telehealth appointments, remained a major barrier to access.

Millbank said the board would continue to advocate for legislative changes to allow assisted dying laws to “operate as they were designed”.

Men comprised a slight majority of applicants. Eighty-five per cent of applicants were receiving palliative care when first assessed.

Dying with Dignity NSW president Penny Hackett said the statistics showed fears people would be driven to assisted dying because of a lack of palliative care options were misplaced.

“It’s blindingly obvious that’s not the case,” she said.

Barry, who is now working in the funeral industry, said Werner’s experience gave her comfort that people with life-ending diagnoses could regain some control over how they die.

“Now I’ve got the absolute knowledge that the way that people choose to die is absolutely with them,” Barry said. “It’s a beautiful thing to be able to support people to do that.”

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