Louise Birt BBC Five Live Audience Editor

Many cancer patients have money worries

Rick Costello*, who was 52, had cancer of the pancreas and lungs. He died at home in Nottingham on Monday.

Rick, a father of three, first emailed BBC Five Live before Christmas when the family were strugging to pay their fuel bills.

His wife had given up work to care for him and they were receiving disability living allowance and carers allowance.

He, along with thousands of others, had their fuel bills paid by the charity Macmillan Cancer Support.

Doctors had told him his life expectancy was between four and six months.

Challenged the government

When he appeared on air he challenged the government to meet him to talk about the Winter Fuel Allowance - the annual payment made to everyone over 60 to help pay gas and electricity bills.

He was a brave and articulate man who wanted his legacy to be that he had tried to change things for the better for others

Rick felt the policy should be changed to include those who were critically or terminally ill.

The government, he said, had made "dying hard work" for him.

Rick and his wife went to meet senior ministers and politicians at Westminster in January, accompanied by Nicky Campbell.

By then he was weaker, but still fighting.

He talked to Menzies Campbell, leader of the Liberal Democrats, who has also had cancer in the past, Labour's Ann McGuire, who heads up the Department of Work and Pensions and Phillip Hammond, her counterpart for the Conservatives.

The issue of winter fuel payments for the seriously ill was also raised at Prime Minister's Questions.

Hard to cope

The government always insisted that the benefits system was designed to help people in Rick's position, but he felt that even with the benefits it was hard to meet the rising costs of fuel.

He argued that cancer, and other diseases lead to weight loss and the sufferer feeling cold nearly all the time.

Macmillan Cancer Support say they paid out �1.4 million to nearly 8,000 people in fuel grants in 2006. So far this year they have already given grants to more than 4,000 people, at a cost of �815,000.

The charity backed Rick's appeals, saying that many people with cancer are caught in a poverty trap which means they cannot pay household expenses.

Following his appearance on Five Live, Rick was offered money by listeners and organisations who had heard him speak.

He declined all offers, saying and the money was donated to Macmillan Cancer Support.

Campaigned to his death

He continued to have conversations with politicians about the issue right up to his death with the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives showing particular interest in his views.

Last week, when he knew he only had a few days to live, he asked to record a final interview.

In it, he says he would like the campaign to go on even after his death, and says that having to ask a charity to pay fuel bills is not right in 2007.

By January he had given up the palliative chemotherapy because it was so painful but he eventually passed away painlessly at home with his family on Monday.

When we first met, Rick told me the doctors had told him he would not "live to see the daffodils."

He said he wanted to not only see Spring, but survive until the summer as well so he could sit in the garden and feel the sun on his face.

He achieved that aim. From a personal point of view, he was a brave and articulate man who wanted his legacy to be that he had tried to change things for the better for others.

It was a privilege to have met him.

*Rick Costello was not his real name. He felt that his dying was hard enough for his family to bear, without them all being thrust into the glare of publicity.