A terminally ill man has requested to end his own life after waiting months for assistance from the federal government.
Cyril Tooze, 86, was approved for the highest level of home care assistance under the government’s MyAgedCare program in January due to his unsurvivable lung and heart illnesses.
The Adelaide Hills man was initially given an estimated nine month wait time to receive the at-home care he desperately needed.
Ten months later, Mr Tooze is still waiting as his health continues to deteriorate to the point where he now weighs 42kg.
He’s one of more than 70,000 elderly Australians waiting to receive at-home aged care.
Mr Tooze has now decided that death would be a better course of action rather than waiting any longer in pain.
He has requested to end his own life using South Australia’s voluntary assisted dying scheme.
‘The healthcare situation is just in crisis in this country,’ he told Nine News.
A terminally ill man, Cyril Tooze (pictured), has requested to be euthanised after waiting more than 10 months for at-home medical assistance from the federal government
‘Now, we’ve gone past 10 months and still no package.’
With his only family living in Queensland and no other options for surgery to drain fluid from his lungs, he is desperate to live out his days at home.
While he was offered assistance for respite care, he still couldn’t afford it on top of rent.
Mr Tooze was eventually granted temporary home care assistance after taking his story public in the hope that the government will act.
‘They have to do something and something quickly,’ Mr Tooze said.
‘People are dying.’
His local independent MP Rebekha Sharkie, said it was ‘shameful’ that waiting times for at-home care had doubled since 2022.
‘If this story doesn’t make the government act and sit up and take notice and put this investment in immediately, I don’t know what will,’ she said.
‘We were looking at one to three months’ wait, which was long enough. Now, 15 months is what’s on the government website.’
Aged care minister Anika Wells told Nine News that she was unable to comment on individual cases
Mr Tooze said he didn’t want to live in pain any longer while waiting for the government to provide the care he was granted in February. He’s pictured MP Rebekha Sharkie
South Australia’s voluntary assisted dying scheme was introduced in January last year.
Permission can be granted if the applicant has been diagnosed with an incurable, advanced disease that will kill them in the next six months and is ‘causing suffering … that cannot be relieved’.
Almost 200 South Australians were granted permission to access VAD in the first year of the scheme.
VAD is legal in most Australian states.
The Northern Territory will be the only place where VAD will be illegal when the ACT’s scheme begins in November 2025.
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