Ex-minister reveals she came within hours of ending her husband’s life in assisted dying appeal

Dame Joan Ruddock calls for Commons vote on the issue

A former government minister has revealed she came close to smothering her husband with a pillow as he died an agonising death from cancer.

Dame Joan Ruddock said that she had gone so far as to get “the pillow ready” and anticipated a “struggle”. She is now appealing for assisted dying to be made legal.

The former head of CND also set out how she cursed herself for not using his liquid morphine while he was still able to swallow it.

She called for a vote on the issue, urging MPs not to stand in the way of something backed by 80 per cent of the population.

Childline founder Dame Esther Rantzen, who has stage four lung cancer, sparked a fresh debate on assisted dying last month, revealing she had joined the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland.

Dame Joan said that towards the end of her husband’s life she resolved that “my only option was a pillow over his head”.

Frank Doran, himself a former MP, had been suffering from terminal colon cancer and she watched him suffer in extreme pain as he neared the end of his life.

On his final night, she said: “I resolved that if a doctor did not come before 1am, I would end Frank’s life.

“I cursed myself for not using the liquid morphine when Frank could still swallow. Now my only option was a pillow over his head.

“I feared he might struggle but I got the pillow ready.

“Just after midnight a doctor arrived. He said there was no need as Frank was sleeping peacefully.

“I told him once the drug wore off the groaning would start again and I couldn’t allow his suffering to continue. He reluctantly gave [an] injection. Frank died seven hours later.”

Dame Joan and Mr Doran both retired as MPs in 2015. Before he died aged 68 in October 2017 the pair endured a year of him living with cancer.

She made her submission to the Commons health and social care select committee, which is investigating the issue of assisted dying.

She said: “We had always spoken openly about death and promised each other help with the dying process should it be needed. It was a very happy marriage.

“I loved him deeply and was determined to support him and didn’t leave his side during the gruelling hours of chemotherapy at our local hospital.”

Joan Ruddock is second from right next to Harriet Harman, along with other Labour MPs Tessa Jowell, Barbara Roche and Clare Short in 1997 (PA)

She eventually became his carer and said he had “begged” her to ensure he died at home.

“Some days later I heard a desperate cry,” Dame Joan recalled. “Frank was in the bathroom where I saw the toilet, the floor and his lower body covered in excrement.

“It was a pitiful sight, and he was absolutely mortified. He said simply ‘I can’t go on living like this’.”

Dame Joan said: “There should be a vote in the Commons and it should be a free vote. Around 80 per cent of people support assisted dying. MPs should take note of that. That is what the country wants and they should do what the country wants.”

She added: “I think there will be a vote in the Commons before Keir becomes PM. But if there is not one before the general election then certainly I would urge Keir Starmer to allow ... a free vote on the issue.”

Esther Rantzen has called on MPs to think of their loved ones and the peaceful end they would wish for them as she accused politicians of avoiding a debate on assisted dying because it will not get them votes (PA)

In her submission, she told MPs: “In Frank’s case the treatment was not sufficient to remove physical suffering and no care could remove the anguish of the mental and emotional suffering.

“I do not believe we need to accept suffering when a condition cannot be treated, and death is inevitable. A person of sound mind should be able to ask to end their life in these circumstances.

“In our case we would probably have asked for release one month before Frank actually died. This would have enabled us to part lovingly and peacefully, conscious that we were together.

“By not having this choice we both suffered, and we used up a huge amount of NHS resource that could have been better deployed elsewhere.”