A high-profile Australian academic died after a long battle with illness is understood to have recently made inquiries about voluntary assisted dying.
Professor Gemma Carey - who was once the director of the Centre for Social Impact at the University of New South Wales - died on November 17 'after a long battle with illness', her family told Daily Mail Australia.
In a now-deleted social media post on X this week, medical researcher Joshua Leisk claimed that a doctor had raised concerns with Prof Carey that she could have been suffering from long Covid following an infection six months earlier.
'In complete despair, she reached out a few hours later for information on voluntary assisted dying,' he claimed.
Mr Leisk claimed Prof Carey was 'terrified of getting Covid'. Her family attempted to lead a Covid-free lifestyle.
Mr Leisk said that she had previously battled a severe staph infection in the gastrointestinal tract that had developed into septicemia.
'It became an intense ordeal during this period and sleep had become challenging,' he wrote, and she sought information about voluntary assisted dying.
Voluntary assisted dying, also known as euthanasia, will become legal in Canberra in 2025. Daily Mail Australia does not suggest Prof Carey used voluntary assisted dying.
ACT Police confirmed the death of the Canberra-based academic is not being treated as suspicious.
She is survived by her husband Ben O'Mara and two-year-old son Gideon.
Australian Professor Gemma Carey, a passionate advocate for the rights of people with disabilities, has died after a battle with illness
Prof Carey was open about her health fights - including an autoimmune disease that can cause paralysis in extreme cases, Guillain-Barre Syndrome - and attempted to live a Covid-free lifestyle with her family.
She released a candid memoir No Matter Our Wreckage, about being sexually assaulted as a young woman.
'My mother knew I was abused as a child. She had read letters sent from my abuser to me,' she wrote in the memoir.
'But she never spoke to me about them, or what they described. And she never intervened to stop the abuse.
'Now she is dying and the past is rising to the surface like a bruise.'
When Prof Carey was 17-years-old, she took the perpetrator to court without anyone else knowing and had him placed on the child sex offenders register.
Prof Carey suffered a serious injury from receiving the Covid vaccine in May 2021, after she took the AstraZeneca jab which was the only one recommended at the time for her Guillain-Barre Syndrome condition.
She told newsletter Crikey that the jab left her suffering 'functional stroke' symptoms.
Her gruelling rehab process has involved relearning how to read, write and talk while on leave from her job.
Prof Carey, who passed away on November 17, pictured with husband Ben O'Mara
Prof Carey's last post on Instagram, dated August 25, contained a heart-wrenching cry of despair.
In January 2022 Prof Carey said she was desperately waiting for the protein-based vaccine Novavax to be approved to allow her to continue her course of Covid vaccines.
She said the AstraZeneca jab had inflamed her Guillain-Barre Syndrome.
'Every fine nerve fibre in my body became inflamed,' Professor Carey told the Sydney Morning Herald.
'It was excruciating. I was in acute care for quite a while.'
Campaigning for fairer and broader vaccine injury compensation scheme saw her targeted by trolls.
That led to her leaving the social media platform then known as Twitter and taking professional leave from her job at UNSW.
'Due to harassment that has crossed form this platform into all aspects of my professional and personal life, I will be taking a leave of absence,' she tweeted on September 10.
Her last post to Instagram, dated August 25, was a poetic cry of heart-wrenching despair.
'So this is it? This is my story now?
'The Dying Girl?
'The Dead Girl?
'The B**ch
'The Survivor.
'Don't I ever get to be anything else?
'Don't I ever get to be myself again?'
In 2019 Prof Carey shared the story of a traumatic miscarriage, her second, where she passed out from pain and had her newborn discarded accidentally.
She told website Kidspot she 'had to sort through a bucket of my miscarriage with a doctor to look for baby bits' for DNA testing.
In November 2021, Prof Carey was threatened with legal action after publishing a nine-word tweet about former Attorney-General Christian Porter.
Ms Carey came under fire after leaving a comment on a 20-year-old photo showing the Mr Porter with Daily Mail Australia political editor Peter van Onselen and his wife Ainslie, and former Australian deputy chief medical officer Dr Nick Coatsworth.
Prof Carey was hit with legal notices from Mr Porter and Prof van Onselen, as well as Liberal National MP Andrew Laming, after making a separate jibe.
She subsequently deleted the tweet and sent almost identically worded apologies to Mr Porter and Prof van Onselen.
'On 24th October 2021, I commented on a photograph of Peter van Onselen when he was at university with others & that comment was completely inappropriate & highly offensive and I should never have published it,' she tweeted.
'It has now been deleted and I unconditionally withdraw my comment and apologise to Mr van Onselen for the hurt caused to him and his wife by my conduct.'
A GoFundMe launched to fund Prof Carey's legal defence raised over $250,000.
For confidential 24-hour support in Australia call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
