Dr Anne Turner’s journey to Dignitas was followed by the BBC in 2006 – and later dramatised in a film starring Julie Walters.
The mother-of-three’s decision to share her story sparked a national conversation about assisted dying.
But 18 years later, her daughter Sophie says the UK’s slow progress is “beyond frustrating”.
Anne had progressive supranuclear palsy, a degenerative disease that destroys brain cells causing loss of muscle function.
Her husband had died of a similar condition, multiple system atrophy, and the family witnessed him starving and dehydrating himself to death.
READ MORE: ‘I asked Rishi to change the law on assisted dying – his answer gave me hope’
Anne was determined to avoid the same fate. Sophie said: “She was categoric that she wanted to take her own life.
“Imagine knowing that you could end up trapped, just basically a brain, functioning, but you can’t speak, eat, move.
“It’s horrendous to think that people have that at the forefront of their minds, that fear about how they’re going to end their days.”
Just under a year after her 2004 diagnosis, Anne tried to end her life by putting a bag over her head and taking any pills she could find.
Sophie recalled: “It was a horrific thing to do and just demonstrates how desperate she was.”
When Anne survived the attempt, Sophie and her siblings – Edward and Jessica – agreed to support their mother’s wish to travel to Dignitas, the Swiss assisted dying clinic.
After telling only a few loved ones of their plans, the family went to Zurich. They enjoyed a final meal and champagne during a weekend spent relishing their last days together.
Sophie said: “I’ve never lived in the moment as I did then, before or since. Every moment was so precious. We made the most of the time we had together.”
Anne met with a doctor and, after completing the necessary procedures, took an anti-sickness drug followed by the life-ending medication.
Sophie said: “She very quickly said: ‘I feel woozy.’ Then she lay down and went into a very deep sleep. Twenty minutes later the volunteer said: ‘She’s gone.’ She died very peacefully and quickly.
“We felt this sense of achievement because it was what she wanted but also frustration that she had to travel abroad to die while she still had some quality of life left.”
The trip cost around £3,000. Today, the cost is estimated to be close to £15,000. Since 1998, UK citizens have made up almost 15 percent of all assisted deaths at Dignitas, according to a parliamentary report published today.
In the weeks after Anne’s death, Sophie sat down for an interview with Dame Esther Rantzen to speak about the experience.
Sophie said: “I’m very sad that Dame Esther is now in the same situation herself. And I find it so upsetting that we are now 18 years on and people are still having to go through this.
“The kind of people who choose to have an assisted death tend to be people like Esther – that’s a woman who knows her own mind, if ever there was one. It’s beyond frustrating and depressing that progress is so slow here.”
Sophie added: “A lot of people don’t understand why people would want to do this. They think: why would you want to take your own life?
“But they don’t understand that people aren’t choosing between life and death. They’re choosing between two different types of death.”
