Terminal patients at breaking point’ amid costs crisis

TERMINALLY ill patients are being pushed into poverty by the cost-of-living crisis, charity bosses warn.

- NICOLA SMALL

Calls to a support line have risen by more than a third since last year, end-of-life charity Marie Curie says.

Instead of making special memories with loved ones, dying people are spending their final precious weeks worrying about money. Nearly 80% of callers surveyed by the charity said they were concerned about keeping warm.

And 61% said their family would struggle to pay the energy bills. Among them is Stewart Batty, whose wife Fran was told she is unlikely to live more than a year after bone cancer spread to her brain. The 50-year-old former PA had already beaten breast cancer twice.