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Gill Pharoah flew to Switzerland to end her life when “her health had deteriorated,” and she couldn’t do things she used to enjoy
NEED TO KNOW
- Gill Pharoah had no terminal illness but chose medical aid in dying when she was 75 due to declining quality of life, according to her partner, John Southall
- The former palliative care nurse feared old age and wanted to be remembered as herself, not diminished by health issues
- Pharoah traveled to Switzerland in 2015 to legally end her life, a decision supported by her Southall and her children
A woman who didn’t have a terminal illness chose medical aid in dying when “she couldn’t do the things she always loved doing” — and her partner supported her choice.
“She had no intention of being a decrepit, old, senile, incontinent old lady,” John Southall told This Morning about his partner of 25 years, Gill [pronounced Jill] Pharoah, who chose to end her life when she was 75.
As he shared, he’d known “right from the beginning” that she wouldn’t “make old bones,” as he phrased it — to the point where “it became a bit of a joke amongst us” with her friends asking, “ ‘When’s she going? She 60 now!’ “
The couple had a full life, he shared. They traveled, often to visit her two children — her son was in Australia, and her daughter was in California, while they were in the U.K. — and as he said, “she loved life.”
Pharoah was a palliative care nurse, and through her job, “she could see that palliative care doesn’t always give you the death that we would all like … with some dignity and painlessly.” As he shared, “She wanted a nice, clean, dignified end to it.”
As Pharoah aged, she began to struggle with poor hearing and other health issues. “Her health had deteriorated so that she couldn’t do the things that she’s always loved doing,” he said, adding that because of her hearing, she’d come home after visiting with friends and say, “ ‘I missed most of the conversation.’ She’d get cross and saddened about it. She had no energy.”
Pharoah, who loved gardening, would end up watching television for hours, because as he said, “she just got no energy to do anything else.”
“Although she’s billed as having been healthy, her life was actually deteriorating quite noticeably,” he shared.
Medical aid in dying is not legal in the U.K., so when she turned 75, in 2015, Pharoah decided to fly to Switzerland to a clinic where she could legally choose to end her life. When she was given the date of her death, she was “delighted,” he said.
“Her view was that at 75, I’m not giving much up anyway,” he shared. “How long would I live if I carried on in this state? Another five years, maybe more, but diminishing quality of life … I’ll give that up to be sure of how I leave the party.”
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“There was never any question of changing her mind,” he said. The only thing that might have done it would have been if one of her children became ill — but even then, it simply would have “postponed it.” And her children, he said, knew it was going to happen, as “she’d always said that’s what she was going to do.” As she aged, “it became more certain and more determined, so they just had to accept it.”
They flew together to Switzerland, he said, and she was feeling “absolutely fine” and “in a good mood.”
Pharoah shared her feelings on her now-deleted website, per CBS News, writing, “I want people to remember me as I am now -a bit worn around the edges and not quite at my peak, but still recognizably me … I would like to think that anyone who has ever cared for me will be happy for me, that I have avoided the kind of old age I have always dreaded and feared.”
Read the original article on People
