British woman with cancer dies by euthanasia on New Zealand beach

A British woman died by euthanasia on a beach in New Zealand, days after urging the UK to change its laws on assisted dying.

Tracy Hickman, 57, who had terminal breast cancer, ‘passed away peacefully’ on Wednesday, her friend and podcaster Dom Harvey said on Instagram.

‘She was on a beach in the sunshine, surrounded by her loved ones. It was exactly what she wanted,’ he wrote, alongside a picture of Tracy.

Tracy had previously shared her story on Dom’s podcast and explained how she wanted to die, ‘listening to the waves’.

Assisted dying for people over 18 with a terminal illness and six months or less to live was made legal in New Zealand in 2019, subject to several strict rules. It is currently illegal in the UK.

Days before her death she posted on social media saying that she was ‘at peace’ with her decision to end her own life.

She wrote: ‘The closer it gets, the more peaceful I feel.

‘But I’m so sorry for causing distress to my family and friends, although they understand.

‘The alternative is to live for another couple of months or so but have an uncertain and painful death.’ 

In an interview with the Guardian last week, Tracy, who had moved to New Zealand, called on Britain to change its laws on assisted dying.

She said: ‘Look at what New Zealand has done, and do it even better. There is a lot of focus on the right to life, but people should have the right to a peaceful, gentle death.’

Tracy’s sister Linda-Clarke, who lives in the UK, told the paper: ‘If Tracy was still in the UK, I’d have to watch her go through a horrific death.’

Tracy was diagnosed with breast cancer in March 2019 after a routine mammogram detected a malignant tumour.

She said that within two hours of the scan a doctor was talking to her about a mastectomy and possible chemotherapy.

‘It was so confronting. Two hours after a standard mammogram I was sitting there talking to this doctor about mastectomies without anyone there to support me,’ she told New Zealand news site The Press. 

Tracy learnt she had a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer called HER2-positive.

She underwent a left-side mastectomy and 12 weeks of chemotherapy, suffering side several effects in the process, including hearing loss.

But the cancer receded and she was able to return to work and even run marathons.

However, in October 2021 while Tracy was watching TV with her partner Paul she noticed numbness on one side of her face and the fingers on her left hand.

Her first thought was that the cancer may have returned, but a brain scan showed no abnormalities.

In November 2022 Tracy started suffering seizures.

‘I suddenly couldn’t speak. I couldn’t form sentences and I was numb down my side,’ she said.

Despite several hospital and healthcare centre visits, doctors were unable to explain her symptoms.

It was only in February last year, when she had a seizure in front of a neurophysio, that Tracy’s oncologist was notified.

An MRI and a PET scan revealed several tumours throughout her body.

Although her cancer was deemed terminal, medics believed she’d live more than six months so she was not eligible for euthanasia.

She was offered life-prolonging, ‘really harsh’ chemotherapy, and although ambivalent she decided to give it a go.

But Tracy suffered more hearing loss as well as nerve damage that led to incontinence.

She described the latter as ‘one of the hardest things to deal with’.

Meanwhile, immunotherapy gave her diarrhoea and affected her mental capacity, causing her problems with concentrating and making decisions.

She decided at that point to stop any further treatment.

In March this year, doctors found tumours in her brain and said she probably had around three months to live.

The prognosis came as a shock but it gave her the opportunity to apply for an assisted death and after being assessed by two doctors she was given the go-ahead.

On Wednesday, a medical team administered the drugs while she relaxed on a beach listening to the waves while surrounded by loved ones.

She lost consciousness soon after, before dying.

Writing on Dom’s Instagram post, Tracy’s partner Paul thanked the podcaster for how he handled her story.

‘It has been sensitive, and the family really appreciated how you brought it to people’s attention in a way that allowed her to raise the awareness she wanted without sensationalising it nor seeking attention.’

Among others fighting to make assisted dying legal in the UK is Dame Esther Rantzen, who has stage four lung cancer.

She revealed in December she was considering euthanasia herself and had joined Swiss organisation Dignitas in case her condition doesn’t improve.

In February she voiced her dismay after a report by The Health and Social Care Committee into assisted dying did not push for a House of Commons debate and vote on the issue.

This comes despite the report finding evidence that assisted dying has led to better end-of-life care in some countries where it is allowed.

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