'She had no regrets'
Heli Brecht was born in Estonia, escaped the Soviet occupation in 1944, then spent four years in a refugee camp in Germany before coming to Australia.
Here, she led an active and independent life. She worked at the Australian National University for many years and enjoyed gardening, reading and cooking.
In her latter years she moved to Grafton to be closer to her son, Nick Westman.
"She was an amazing woman," Nick says.
"She knew about voluntary assisted dying and she had said, ‘I want to do that'.
“So we had time to get used to the idea.”
“She saw that her future was lying in a bed immobile, yet her brain was still 100 percent, and she didn’t want that.”
Heli started having neurological symptoms which were eventually diagnosed as Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a rare brain disease that affects walking, balance, eye movements and swallowing.
“Mum was losing her ability to walk, and was in a wheelchair. She could no longer read, cook or garden,’’ Nick says.
“She saw that her future was lying in a bed immobile, yet her brain was still 100 percent, and she didn’t want that.”
When VAD became legally available in NSW in November 2023, she was one of the first to apply. The NSW Care Navigator team coordinated doctors to come from Sydney to conduct the assessments.
Heli was approved after the team helped find a specialist who could give an accurate diagnosis and prognosis, which made her eligible for VAD.
She moved into a nursing home as she could no longer manage independently, and arranged to have VAD in Grafton Base Hospital in February 2024, administered by a practitioner because of problems she was having swallowing. She was supported by Nick and her daughter Ingrid, who flew out from her home in Canada, through the process.
“She was waiting for her first great-granddaughter to be born, then chose the day,’’ Nick says.
She had no regrets. She went peacefully. Her mind was clear
The day before her assisted death, Nick and Ingrid took their mother out for a car tour around her favourite places in the Clarence Valley. They stopped for a picnic lunch at the town of Lawrence on the Clarence River with all her favourite foods including her beloved Estonian herrings, prawns, caviar and her preferred drink - a Bloody Mary.
“We talked a lot. She had no regrets. She went peacefully. Her mind was clear,’’ he says.
Nick understands his mother was the first person in NSW with a neurological disorder to die with VAD.
“She was in great spirits right to the end.”
Nick was motivated to speak about his mother’s experience, so more people are aware of VAD as an end-of-life choice.
“I want people to understand it’s there as an option. It’s traumatic. But we also realised that seeing mum immobile in a bed would have been a lot worse,’’ he says.
“The whole process by the VAD team was so caring and respectful and empathetic. It’s how I’d want to go.”
He added that on the afternoon of her death, there was the “most incredible sunset we’d ever seen”.
“We said: ‘thanks Mum’.”
Nick Westman speaks about his mother’s VAD experience in the SBS podcast VAD a 'beautiful, compassionate, peaceful revolution' - but there's room for improvement