The sky is painted an impressive shade of blue, and cherry blossoms are in full bloom. It’s a type of days that fills you with the enjoyment of being alive, isn’t it, Wendy?
Wendy Duffy presents a slight, figuring out smile. “I gained’t change my thoughts,” she states firmly. “I perceive it’s troublesome for you, pricey. It is going to be difficult for everybody. However I’ve made my choice to die, and that’s what I intend to do. I’ll be smiling when it occurs, so I hope you might be joyful for me. My life; my alternative.”
As you learn this, Wendy, a 56-year-old former care employee from the West Midlands, can have already launched into a journey to Switzerland with no plans of returning.
Her journey to Pegasos, the controversial ‘suicide clinic’ that may help her in ending her life, has been within the works for over a 12 months.
“I can’t wait,” she confesses, revealing that she arrange a countdown on her telephone as soon as she obtained the ultimate approval late final 12 months.
She has spent £10,000, penned farewell letters to her family members, chosen her closing apparel, and chosen the music that may accompany her final moments.
‘You’ll be able to select no matter track you need. I’m going to exit to Girl Gaga and Bruno Mars singing Die With A Smile.’
One other almost-smile follows, an apologetic one this time. ‘You’ll by no means have the ability to hear that track now with out considering of me, will you?’
‘I gained’t change my thoughts,’ Wendy Duffy says. ‘I do know it’s exhausting for you, sweetheart. It is going to be exhausting for everybody. However I wish to die, and that’s what I’m going to do’
Wendy misplaced her solely little one, Marcus, in stunning circumstances 4 years in the past
What’s improper with Wendy? It was the very first thing I requested once I was contacted and knowledgeable that one in every of Pegasos’s British ‘friends’ wish to inform her story BEFORE she died.
I’d written about this clinic earlier than. I knew it was one of many extra, let’s assume, problematic of the Swiss assisted-dying organisations with a much less stringent acceptance standards than the extra well-known Dignitas.
Nonetheless, how naive I used to be, questioning whether or not Wendy was affected by most cancers, motor neurone illness or a type of different hideous degenerative circumstances that make determined individuals get on planes to Switzerland whereas they nonetheless can.
The reply was infinitely extra disturbing. Wendy, it was defined, is just not dying. She is just not even ailing. She is bodily wholesome, however she misplaced her solely little one, Marcus, 23, in stunning circumstances 4 years in the past, and no quantity of remedy – and there was heaps, she insists – has satisfied her that life is value dwelling.
She has already tried to take her personal life and failed, ending up perilously near being a ‘cabbage in a persistent vegetative state’.
She utilized to Pegasos as a result of she needs to make a ‘neater’ (her phrases) job of it subsequent time, in a managed and medical setting.
‘I may step off a motorway bridge or a tower block however that would go away anybody discovering me coping with that for the remainder of their lives,’ she says, bluntly. ‘I don’t wish to put anybody by means of that.’
Even in Switzerland, the go-to vacation spot for the ‘suicide vacationer’, Wendy’s case is prone to be controversial.
Opposite to in style perception there isn’t a express ‘proper to die’ written into Swiss legislation, however – in contrast to within the UK – helping suicide is authorized if not executed for self-serving motives.
Whereas there’s a complete trade geared as much as dispense ‘assist’ to die, it’s not fairly a case of death-on-demand for individuals who need it.
In apply, psychiatric-only circumstances (i.e. the place there isn’t a bodily sickness) are extra contentious and necessities are strict. Organisations have to have the ability to present that the situation suffered is extreme, long-lasting and treatment-resistant. Many clinics, equivalent to Dignitas, refuse these circumstances completely.
And but, Wendy’s struggling has been deemed ample to fulfill the Pegasos standards.
A panel of consultants, together with psychiatrists, has handed her software after months of evaluation and having had entry to her full medical data. Inside days of her arrival in Switzerland, and topic to a closing psychiatric evaluation – a beyond-doubt in-person affirmation that she has psychological capability – she might be helped to die.
‘I’ve to manage the remedy myself, that’s what the legislation says,’ she explains, speaking me by means of the method.
‘They put the road in [to your arm] however you’ve acquired to show the doobra [the dial] your self to get it flowing. Then – ding, ding, ding – inside a minute, you might be in a coma, and a minute after that, you might be gone.’
She not solely sounds ready for this course of, however is trying ahead to it. She talks like a girl heading to Barbados on vacation, baggage packed, home vacuumed, already feeling the sunshine on her face.
‘Oh, I’m super-organised. I’ve watched movies and it’s completely pretty there. You look out on bushes and nature, and it’s so peaceable. My solely stipulation is that I’ve requested if they’ll be certain that the massive home windows are open, so my spirit might be free.
‘I’ve requested that they provide the issues I’ve introduced, together with my suitcase, to an animal charity in order that different individuals profit. I hate waste, you see.
‘The one disadvantage is that I gained’t have the ability to donate my organs, however there isn’t an possibility for that. I’ll be cremated there, so there gained’t even be a funeral to fret about – I hate funerals anyway and don’t need one. My ashes might be despatched again to my household, and I need them scattered at “his” bench within the park, along with his. It’s all deliberate.’
What of her household again right here within the UK? If anybody travelled along with her, or assisted her suicide in any method (even driving her to the airport), they might threat police investigation, if not prosecution within the UK.
She tells me her siblings (she has 4 sisters; two brothers) know that she utilized to Pegasos. They don’t know the timescale for her ‘process’ – for their very own safety.
‘Pegasos have been in contact with them. I’ll name them once I get to Switzerland. It is going to be a tough name the place I’ll say goodbye and thank them. However they’ll get it. They know. Actually, 100 per cent, they know that I’m not joyful, that I don’t wish to be right here.’
They are going to be deeply damage, certainly? Distressed. Presumably offended. Wendy nods.
‘There might be a level of that, however they don’t must stay my life. Nobody does.’
‘The day I found I used to be pregnant with Marcus was the happiest of my life,’ says Wendy
Wendy is not going to be the primary British particular person to decide on to make a clandestine journey to Switzerland to finish all of it, however she’s the primary to be so up entrance about it.
Why is she making one thing that’s usually secretive a matter of public document? She insists that it’s as a result of she needs to be part of the assisted dying debate.
‘My life; my alternative. I want this was accessible within the UK, then I wouldn’t must go to Switzerland in any respect.’
She additionally needs to attract consideration to the ‘unfairness’ of the present system on her household. ‘I’m not breaking the legislation. I don’t really feel I’m doing something improper. But for them, it’s a large number.’
Some might nicely help her ‘proper’ to die, however Wendy’s story will even be a grenade lobbed into the assisted dying debate, the final instalment of which, it so occurs, is about to happen within the Home of Lords on Friday.
Those that oppose any change to British legislation have lengthy argued that if we give terminally ailing individuals the ‘proper’ to die, below any circumstances, then it gained’t be lengthy earlier than those that should not nearing the tip of life will demand the identical proper. The slippery slope argument, if you’ll.
To many, Wendy’s case will counsel we aren’t simply on the prime of the slope, however a way down it.
The Day by day Mail has not taken the choice to publish Wendy’s story frivolously. We accomplish that as a result of there are different Wendys making this similar journey, and in astonishing numbers – placing dozens of households in inconceivable conditions.
No matter British legislation says about assisted suicide, British people are frequently travelling to Pegasos to die. It has been confirmed to us that not less than one such journey is being made out of the UK to this clinic each single week.
When Pegasos founder Ruedi Habegger agrees to speak to me about Wendy’s case, he is not going to be drawn on precise figures, however I put it to him that her story should be most uncommon, even for Pegasos. ‘No, no, no, it’s not,’ he says.
Habegger, a right-to-die activist, based the Pegasos Swiss Affiliation, a non-profit organisation primarily based in Basel, in 2019.
It hit the headlines within the UK when it emerged that it had helped British instructor Alastair Hamilton, 47, to die in 2023.
Mr Hamilton had been complaining of abdomen pains within the months main as much as his demise, however he’d had no official prognosis. He advised his mother and father he was going to Paris on vacation they usually solely found his plans after his demise.
One other case involving a British shopper, recognized solely as Anne, 51, was additionally deeply contentious.
Anne had advised Pegasos that her household have been totally conscious of her plans – but it surely emerged later that they weren’t; she had misled the clinic, and it had not checked.
Underneath Swiss legislation there isn’t a requirement for households to be told, however Pegasos insists that it modified its tips after these controversial circumstances and – Habegger confirms – now insist that they go to nice lengths to confirm that the household is conscious.
I’ve already spoken to Wendy on the phone a number of instances earlier than we meet in particular person, at a Midlands lodge, and from first contact am struck by how matter-of-fact she is. Additionally, how upbeat. She weeps throughout our interview, however solely when she is speaking in regards to the demise of her son.
When the topic turns to her personal demise, she radiates happiness, even pleasure. At one stage she will get up and, describing how her household will scatter her ashes, she does the ‘Shake n’ Vac’ routine from the carpet-cleaner adverts.
Wendy tells me Marcus died as a result of, hungover from a heavy evening, he had fallen asleep on the lounge couch, whereas consuming a sandwich
Wendy utilized to the Pegasos clinic in Switzerland as a result of she needs to make a ‘neater’ (her phrases) job of taking her life, in a managed and medical setting
By the tip of our time collectively, I’ve advised Wendy – an animal lover who waited till her two canines had died of previous age earlier than she set a date at Pegasos – that I’m going to purchase her a canine and deposit it on her doorstep, to present her a motive to stay.
‘You may give me a home filled with canines. I’m doing this.’
She’s a heat, humorous lady, filled with, nicely, life. Many years working within the care sector has given her an ease with individuals, maybe with troublesome conversations too.
‘Oh, I’ve seen demise one million instances,’ she says. ‘I’ve sat with so many individuals as they’ve gone. I’ve seen good deaths, horrible deaths. I desire a good, mild one.’
She gained’t let me meet her at her residence as a result of she doesn’t wish to give me her handle. She additionally is not going to inform me the timescale for her ‘journey’, in case I do one thing to attempt to cease her.
It’s a stipulation of the interview that it’ll not be revealed till she has knowledgeable her household of the precise date of her ‘process’, and that might be when she reaches Switzerland.
What kind of particular person goes to Switzerland to die? A really extraordinary one, it seems.
Wendy was born into a giant Irish household. She by no means married however was with Marcus’s father (who she doesn’t wish to title) for about 13 years. ‘By no means married. By no means needed to, despite the fact that it was anticipated. I used to be the black sheep.’
She did wish to be a mom, although.
‘It was all I ever needed. I needed plenty of youngsters, but it surely simply didn’t occur. I watched all my sisters and brothers pop them out, however for ten years, it didn’t occur for me.’
She particulars the medical investigations that confirmed injury to her fallopian tubes. She noticed a fertility specialist, begged for assist.
‘I advised the marketing consultant that I wasn’t grasping. If I may have one little one, I might be the happiest lady on the earth.’
Then, in 1998, she acquired her miracle. ‘The day I found I used to be pregnant with Marcus was the happiest of my life.’
She exhibits me photos of Marcus, her ‘stunning boy’, on her telephone. She break up from Marcus’s dad when he was round 4, so mom and son have been a decent unit. She labored exhausting, ‘saved for his future. Every little thing was about Markie.’
Music was Marcus’s ardour. ‘He left college and had numerous jobs however music was his life. He was into recording. He beloved hip-hop and dirt. I’d be shouting, “flip that bloody factor down”. I’d give something to be shouting at him to show the music down at the moment.
‘Within the funeral residence, I went in on daily basis, and simply sat with him, enjoying by means of his Spotify record. I broke once I noticed him in there. My boy, on a steel desk. You’ll be able to’t come again from that, you recognize.’
Would it not have mattered how Marcus died? Presumably not, however the traumatic nature of his demise – and the truth that his mom, medically skilled, tried to carry out CPR herself – did contribute to the nightmares that got here to hang-out her.
She tells me he died as a result of, hungover from a heavy evening, he had fallen asleep on the lounge couch, whereas consuming a sandwich.
‘I’d been making myself one. Cheese and onion, and he stated he’d have one. “Throw a few these cherry tomatoes on mine,” he stated.’
She did, chopping them in half, ‘as I’d all the time executed’. She left him to his sandwich and was pottering about, ‘getting stuff prepared for work’. When she went again into the lounge, she walked into each father or mother’s nightmare.
‘He was purple,’ she says. ‘I believed, ‘It’s his coronary heart.’
She acquired Marcus to the ground and began CPR, screaming for assist as she did so. Earlier than lengthy the place was full of paramedics.
Within the hospital, the worst information. Half of a cherry tomato had been discovered lodged in Marcus’s windpipe. It had taken specialist gear to take away it. Wendy wouldn’t have been in a position to do it manually, even when she had recognized it was there.
‘They suppose he will need to have fallen asleep when he nonetheless had meals in his mouth. That’s the one consolation, that there was no battle.’
Starved of oxygen for too lengthy, Marcus was mind lifeless.
By the point you learn this, Wendy can have boarded a airplane to Switzerland with a one-way ticket
Wendy sat with him for 5 days earlier than the machines have been switched off. By then his organs had been taken for transplant.
‘Afterwards, I acquired a letter from the person who acquired his coronary heart. He stated that due to Marcus he was in a position to play along with his youngsters once more.’ One other recipient was a four-year-old little one. ‘That was a consolation, but it surely additionally ripped at me.’
She appears again on this era with absolute readability. ‘That’s once I died too, inside. I’m not the identical particular person now as I used to be. I used to really feel issues. I’d go to funerals after Marcus died, and I’d really feel nothing. It’s why I had to surrender work. You’ll be able to’t be a carer in case you don’t care, and I’m sorry, however I don’t. I don’t care about something any extra. I exist. I don’t stay.’
Her suicide try – by way of an overdose – got here 9 months after Marcus died. She deliberate it, ‘like a marriage’, leaving her affairs so as. She had calculated she’d have 48 hours earlier than anybody observed her lacking, however she didn’t reckon on one in every of her buddies – who knew she was suicidal – elevating the alarm after she failed to reply to messages.
The police broke into her residence, to be met by the notice she’d neatly taped to the bed room door, warning what lay inside.
To hospital, then, abdomen pumped. It was contact and go. ‘I used to be on a ventilator for 2 weeks. Once they took me off it, I couldn’t transfer, I may solely blink sure and no. They advised my household I might need locked-in syndrome. I misplaced the usage of my proper arm for some time. I nonetheless don’t have any feeling in my little finger. I bear in mind coming spherical and considering, “I’ve f***ed this up”, and I don’t wish to undergo that once more. That’s why I’ve gone for Pegasos.’
On her launch from hospital, she was admitted to a psychiatric ward (‘it was voluntary’). She discharged herself after one evening.
‘I believed possibly they’re going to give me counselling however the room was like a jail. A mattress, a wardrobe with no door on. They wouldn’t let me have my toothbrush they usually searched the whole lot. They introduced me a grimy beaker with tea in.’
Dwelling she went. Did one thing go catastrophically improper with the help system right here? It’s inconceivable to inform. Wendy is dismissive of among the NHS counsellors she noticed within the months and years after this, however praises one. She did have non-public counselling on prime. She was additionally placed on antidepressants.
‘I did attempt to get higher,’ she says, rejecting any suggestion that she had stubbornly determined she was past assist.
‘However you’ll be able to take all of the tablets, you’ll be able to go to all of the counselling on the earth – and I did. Finally, they’ll’t allow you to. They don’t must stay your life, and my life is agony. Despite the fact that I’ve acquired household, I’ve acquired buddies, I’ve acquired my routines. I am going to the park. I’m not lonely, however I nonetheless sit at evening and I discuss to Marcus, and I kiss the field I had made for his ashes and I say “goodnight, sunshine” and I feel “I don’t wish to be on this world with out you, Markie”. And I don’t. It’s so simple as that.’
As a closing marker of their intense connection in life, when she dies she might be sporting a t-shirt belonging to Marcus as a result of, she says, ‘it nonetheless smells of him’.
Wendy first turned conscious of Pegasos in 2024, when the clinic was within the information after an ITV investigation into Alastair Hamilton’s demise, when his mom was publicly calling Pegasos a ‘cowboy clinic’. It was damning publicity – and but, Wendy says she thought ‘Wow. That is what I want.’ She despatched an electronic mail asking for extra data, and in early 2025, a proper software.
And right here we’re, over a 12 months on. Since then there was ‘fixed’ back-and-forth with Pegasos with interviews, kinds to fill in.
‘They need documentation for the whole lot – all my medical data, particulars of all of the counselling, remedy. They know the whole lot.’
All contact with Pegasos has been distant, nonetheless, with most communication taking place over electronic mail or WhatsApp.
What shocks me is that, on the time we communicate, there was no in-person contact – though the ultimate stage will contain a face-to-face evaluation in Switzerland with a psychiatrist, to verify she is of sound thoughts.
Many will discover it additionally troubling that cash has modified arms. Wendy paid £5,000 on the level her software was formalised; and has now settled the steadiness. This £10,000 is her life financial savings.
‘However it’s what I need. Some individuals spend 1000’s on a purse. I don’t want a purse.’
What is that this cash for? Underneath Swiss legislation, it’s forbidden to revenue from assisted demise, and Pegasos is a non-profit organisation. Purchasers fund the remedy, pay for the medical doctors (there’s a rule that they can’t earn greater than they might in, say, a hospital), and the funeral prices.
A portion additionally goes to the Swiss state. Rising concern over taxpayers forking out for ‘demise tourism’ has led to an settlement between the clinics and the authorities, in order that the police and coroner expenses – routine in any demise – are met by the clinics.
Pegasos insist that the appliance course of is rigorous. Even inside Swiss legislation, Ruedi Habegger tells me, ‘there’s a purple line that we can not cross, in any other case it’s not assisted suicide; you would truly name it homicide’.
In Wendy’s case, is he assured that he’s not straying too near that line?
‘If the psychiatrist provides us the OK, we’re inside the authorized buildings in Switzerland. We’re fantastic.’
Legally fantastic, however what about morally fantastic? It is a lady who has a long time left to stay. That is clearly a much-loved sister, auntie, buddy.
‘Look, the coroners who come to us are additionally those who go to the prepare stations to choose up the bits and items from the individuals who have taken their lives one other method. The individuals who wish to determine to take their lives mustn’t must do it on this horrible method.’
There’s enormous debate available about whether or not Wendy’s method is ‘neater’, however she is satisfied it’s.
She tells me she’s cleared out the whole lot at residence, charity store drops have been executed, it’s all in hand along with her landlord (she rents, so there isn’t a home to promote). Her household will know the place to seek out the letters to them.
Isn’t this egocentric, Wendy? ‘I suppose it’s,’ she agrees. ‘However it’s what I need. And I’m going to get it, a method or one other. I’m sorry if that makes me sound smug.’
What would Marcus say? He’d be horrified, certainly?
‘I feel he’d in all probability say “Get that canine, Mum, buck up your concepts”, however in the end he would perceive.’
It’s not even the case that Wendy is certain she and her son might be reunited. Though she was raised Catholic, she has no time for faith now. ‘I’m religious, and I do consider Marcus might be ready for me, however even when he isn’t, even when there may be nothing on the opposite facet, it will likely be higher than this.’
The birds are singing as I stroll Wendy to her taxi after our interview. It truly is essentially the most stunning day, we agree.
‘However it’s not sufficient to make me wish to cease right here,’ she says. I inform her that the world might be a much less stunning place if she goes by means of with this. ‘My alternative, sweetheart,’ she says.
Postscript: A number of weeks later, I obtain a name from Wendy to say she has arrived in Switzerland. She says she has had these troublesome calls along with her household, who – like this newspaper – settle for her choice, even when they disagree with it.
Pegasos confirms that she was deemed to have full psychological capability in that closing psychiatric evaluation, which occurred earlier this week.
Founder Ruedi Habegger says: ‘What I can affirm is that 4 siblings have been knowledgeable. They gave their blessings.
‘Wendy may be very determined. I noticed her at her lodge at the moment, I had an extended discuss along with her and with the psychiatrist that’s going to see her a second time earlier than the VAD [voluntary assisted death]. He’s very assured that we’re doing the suitable factor letting her go, that we must always not stand in her method. She is totally not in a depressive state. I’m very skilled on this subject. There are not any worries with Wendy, none in any respect.
‘Her household knew this was coming at one level or one other. She is joyful that she has their blessing. She feels content material now, like a weight has been lifted.’
On Wednesday, Wendy stated: ‘I’ve advised all of them they usually help me. They’re unhappy, however they know what this has executed to me’.
She has advised her household that she has given an interview to the Day by day Mail, which might be revealed earlier than she dies.
Her VAD ‘process’ is because of occur on Friday.
No cash has been paid for this interview.
Photos by MURRAY SANDERS
– For confidential help, name Samaritans on 116 123, go to samaritans.org or go to https://www.thecalmzone.web/get-support
