Sir Michael Palin receives apology from NHS following wife’s death

Sir Michael Palin has received an apology from the NHS after he voiced his anger at the mistreatment of his beloved wife.

The Monty Python star, 82, was married to Helen Gibbins for 57 years before her death in 2023 from chronic kidney disease aged 80.

Helen has been undergoing dialysis at NHS St Pancras Hospital in London, however her transport to receive treatment was often unreliable.

Michael said: ‘The whole system was very inefficient, the people who collected her were sometimes an hour late. 

‘Sometimes, they didn’t turn up; it was a very, very difficult period for her.’

The transportation used to take Helen to and from St Pancras was managed by logistics company DHL, though an NHS representative says of any failures: ‘It’s our responsibility, ultimately’.

An official NHS statement said: ‘We are sorry that Sir Michael’s late wife Helen had a poor experience of the patient transport service.

‘In the past two years we have worked closely with our transport provider to improve waiting times – particularly for dialysis patients.  We have received positive feedback about the improvements we have made, and this work continues.’

It comes after Michael revealed he is preparing for the end of his life after the death of his beloved wife left him contemplating his own mortality.

Helen passing has, he now says, helped the whole family to speak more openly about death and he has now finalised his will and handed over his passwords. 

Speaking on the On the Marie Curie Couch podcast he admitted: ‘I do think about death and the family are rather wonderful about it: “Have you made a will? Can I be in your will?”

‘I’ve made my will and all that. My family, my children, know where to find what they need to find should I die.’

The actor, writer and broadcaster has three children with Helen, Thomas, 56, William, 54, and Rachel, 50 , and said he’s passed on all his passwords to them ‘in case I get run over by a bus. 

‘However fit you are, anything might happen. But I don’t dwell on mortality. I dwell on life.’

Michael and Helen met when they were just 16 on a summer holiday in Suffolk, and he said her death made him more aware of his own physical state.

‘I’m 82 now, which is longer than any Palin male has lived for 200 years,’ he said. 

‘I keep fit and I’m working, fortunately, and doing some quite difficult stuff, filming and all that.

‘I kid myself that I’m going to be alright, and yet I know that I won’t because you feel tired at certain times. You’re slightly unsteady as you get out of bed, and you think, what’s happening? Well, the old car’s getting a bit rusty.’

Michael underwent open heart surgery in 2019 to repair a valve, an experience that made him more conscious of the body’s frailty. 

‘That saved my life, really,’ he said. ‘And so I’ve been through that, which I think is quite important – to know that your body is vulnerable. And the older you get, the more vulnerable it is.’

‘I feel really glad that all my grandchildren were able to participate and see and understand right up to the last minute that this is what happens: you get ill, and eventually your body just stops working, and that’s it.

‘And they know about that, and they can ask any questions. I really encouraged this afterwards – if they wanted to know about her illness or about grandpa: “When will you die?” That sort of thing. And that’s fine. Really good. I really enjoy having those conversations.’

He added that Helen’s death had prompted the entire family to confront death more directly.

Michael added that following Helen’s death, he struggled to imagine how he would survive.

‘There was a time when I didn’t think it was going to get better,’ he said. ‘I thought, gosh, it’s just going to be poignant days. I’m going to break into tears every now and then.

‘It does get better and it does adjust. And after two years now I feel I could think of Helen. I’m surrounded by her anyway. I’ve got photos. 

‘I haven’t got rid of anything to do with her. The family embody what she was to them and that’s all made it much, much easier.

‘But… even in the most careful circumstances where you say, “I’m going to deal with that, I know what to do” – you don’t at all. 

‘You absolutely don’t know. It’s absolutely a sucker punch. You just don’t know what’s going to happen or how you’re going to feel or how you’re going to react.’

Asked how he’d like to be remembered, Michael replied: ‘I don’t want to feel that I’ve been exalted on any sort of pinnacle in any shape or form. 

‘Helen was very strong on that… She was obviously pleased that I had been successful at certain things, but didn’t go on about it a lot. She was far more interested in whether I was going to be able to mend the tyre on the car.’

He recalled one moment, while filming in Tibet, when he managed to reach her by phone from 12,000 feet up. ‘I remember ringing up from the middle of the Tibetan Plateau. 

‘And I’m saying, “Guess where I am?” She says, “Well, I don’t care where you are. Where’s the plumber’s number? The bathroom boiler’s gone and it’s making a terrible hissing noise.”

‘By the end of the phone call, I hadn’t told her anything about the magnificent landscape… So there we are. That’s sort of what life is, and I think that’s what death is as well.’