Sue Biggerstaff is pushing for the Assisted Dying Bill to be passed. She told reporter Tom Curphey about how her husband Simon seriously suffered at the end of his life and she believes he should've had a choice, along with everyone else, of when to die.
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00:00 My name's Sue Biggerstaff and my husband Simon had motor neuro disease.
00:06 He only lived 11 months.
00:08 For the last few weeks of his life, well he was paralysed from the neck down for several months,
00:13 but the last few weeks of his life he was fed through a tube,
00:17 had to have a mask to assist him to breathe.
00:20 He ended up with four drivers, one in each limb, to try and stop the pain.
00:27 He had to have an enema every day.
00:30 There's no dignity in that.
00:32 He had a catheter fitted for several months, where the enema was for several months.
00:37 But towards the end, the most horrific part was the fact that,
00:41 because he'd been kept alive so long, his body started to decompose.
00:46 What I thought was a bed sore, rapidly spread across his entire backside.
00:52 He started to go to his legs, he swallowed teeth because his gums were decomposing.
00:58 He was in absolute agony.
01:00 And there's nothing anybody can do.
01:03 And he kept begging for it to stop and asking for more pain relief.
01:06 They said they couldn't give him any more, he'd be in a coma.
01:09 How can it be right that someone has to suffer like that?
01:13 This should be available to everybody and they should have the freedom of choice themselves.
01:18 It's not up to anybody else to say who has freedom of choice.
01:21 He was in agony and he's begged for it to stop.
01:25 And it's not just them, it's their family and friends that are witnessing it.
01:29 I'm so sorry, it's obviously such a touching thing for you and so emotional.
01:33 How important is it to see other people out here today campaigning for this?
01:36 It's absolutely marvellous to see.
01:38 And I've got friends that have turned up, which have lost loved ones.
01:41 But unfortunately, I seem to be the only one that can talk about it.
01:45 I don't know why, because I find it terribly distressing to think
01:49 that anybody would be against this if they'd seen Simon in his last few days,
01:55 especially the last couple of weeks.
01:57 They would not want anybody to go through this.
02:00 They really wouldn't.
02:01 I'm so grateful to these guys for being here.
02:04 Many of them have lost loved ones through similar circumstances.
02:08 And I thought this decomposing thing was just unusual.
02:13 But no, I've spoken to nurses, it's cold.
02:16 Lots of people have gone through this, and they really should help too.
02:20 They really should.