Audrey and Eddie Buckham worked hard and saved all their lives.
They were still both working in 2020, Audrey as an administrator for the NHS and Eddie as a dispatch driver, when Eddie started to lose weight.
He underwent medical investigation and for months doctors couldn’t establish what was wrong. Then, in October 2020, Eddie was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and he began 12 gruelling rounds of chemotherapy.
It was a physically and emotionally exhausting time for the 64-year-old grandmother from County Durham, who reduced her work to three days a week to care for Eddie.
‘It was aggressive chemo and he was going every two weeks for six months. He felt terrible, he was tired and had no appetite, but he was a fighter,’ she remembers tearfully.
While Audrey cared for her seriously ill husband, she found herself facing poverty for the first time in her life.
With Eddie no longer earning, and her wage significantly reduced, Audrey watched helplessly as the bills racked up. The couple went from taking home more than £3,000 a month to ending up thousands in debt.
Up to 15% of end-of-life carers live in poverty, according to a new report published today. Research by charity Marie Curie found that up to three quarters of a million people across the UK provide unpaid care to terminally ill loved ones every year and that at least 22,500 of these are living below the poverty line.
Alarmingly, this number sharply increases in the year following a bereavement with funeral poverty, loss of benefits and pensions, housing insecurity and impacts on employment contributing factors.
Marie Curie is urging the UK Government to extend Carers Allowance entitlement, from two months to six months after a bereavement.
The charity is also calling on the UK Government to use its Employment Rights Bill to introduce a new statutory right to paid Carers Leave, to help unpaid carers balance their caring and employment responsibilities.
The charity is also proposing a State Pension-level of income guarantee for working-age people living with a terminal illness, to provide better financial support for them and their household at the end of life.
Audrey and Eddie managed on around £2,000 a month from Audrey’s salary, Eddie’s Personal Independence Payment, Employment and Support Allowance and pensions, but by Spring Audrey had to stop working because she couldn’t care for him full time and continue working.
‘It was horrendous. I was exhausted. Going to and fro from hospital. Every day was the same and with no time for yourself. You get run down and get every cold and flu going around. It took a toll on my body.
‘We were fine financially before Eddie got ill. We had enough money to live on and everything was comfortable. But about a month before Eddie died, I realised we couldn’t carry on any more,’ she remembers.
By spring, the couple were around £10,000 in debt and Audrey had to file for bankruptcy. In May 2022, doctors gave the couple the heartbreaking news that there was nothing more they could do for Eddie.
‘I was so worried about money. It felt terrible. I felt sick every day. I’d never had to go through anything like that before. I felt horrible. I didn’t want to burden Eddie with money worries, but in the end I had to tell him and we cried together.
It was so upsetting, to have to go to someone who is dying with that news. And then he felt that it was his fault that we were in that situation.
‘It was upsetting for Eddie because he was worried about us and how we would cope after he died. And we were worried about him – and about money. It was heartbreaking for the whole family.
People shouldn’t have to be worried like that in their final weeks.
‘I felt terrible watching him die. It’s hard to explain how it is. You just want to cry all the time but you want to be strong for him and the rest of the family. I sometimes used to go in the garage and cry,’ she remembers.
Eddie, Audrey’s husband of 37 years, went into a hospice and died in June 2022.
In the wake of his death Audrey faced a huge amount of administration and was also worried about how she would make ends meet.
‘It was a frantic time and I wasn’t in the right frame of mind.
I nearly lost my car, which I’d need to go back to work. But because it was only worth £4,000 they didn’t take it. And I was worried I might not be able to pay for the funeral.’
Fortunately, the burial was covered by insurance and Audrey was discharged from bankruptcy in May last year and has since returned to work.
She believes it will be a long time before she can retire and the past few years have been a harrowing time made worse by money worries.
‘No-one should have to go through such a nightmare when caring for a dying loved one,’ she adds.
