The widow of a gig economy worker who died after skipping hospital appointments because he was afraid of being charged for missing work is facing possible homelessness in a development exposing the widening impact of insecure employment.

Ruth Lane has been served with an eviction notice after falling into rent arrears since her husband, Don, 53, collapsed and died from a heart attack related to diabetes. At the time he worked for the parcel delivery giant DPD in January 2018.

Lane was charged £150 by DPD when he missed work to attend a hospital appointment and subsequently missed three other appointments for fear of further charges. Before his death he had collapsed twice while working, including once at the wheel.

His widow alleges he was ill and vomiting blood before he died, but didn’t take time off for fear of being charged again by DPD. His death sparked anger among Conservative and Labour MPs in parliament when it was revealed by the Guardian.

The filmmaker Ken Loach said he had Lane’s story in mind when he made his latest critically acclaimed feature film, Sorry We Missed You, examining the impact of the UK gig economy on one family, which will be released in November.

Lane was treated as self-employed so his family were not able to claim death-in-service payments from which many employed workers benefit and he had no life insurance. In recent months his widow’s financial predicament has grown steadily worse. Despite working full-time, she and her 23-year-old son Jordon could be homeless within weeks.

“When I got the email [containing a section 8 eviction notice] it terrified me,” she said. “Blind panic. What the hell am I going to do? I was driving to work saying to myself: ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry.’ But I just couldn’t stop.”

DPD said in a statement that as Lane was self-employed “it would be inappropriate for us to comment on Mrs Lane’s financial situation”.

DPD Group UK delivers for household names including Next and Asos and made £121m in profit in 2017, according to its latest accounts. The highest paid director earned a salary of £987,000 but DPD declined to confirm whether this was the chief executive, Dwain McDonald, who has previously admitted to breaking the law by using a cameraphone while driving on the M62 motorway.

Ruth Lane’s landlords reduced her rent when she said she could no longer afford the small Dorset house she shared with Don, but despite working full-time for Marks & Spencer she cannot even cover the lower cost and has been ordered to leave.

She said the eviction has compounded her distress and trauma at her husband’s death and she said she faces the prospect of living in emergency housing if they cannot find an affordable replacement home.

“I just think: can my life get any worse?” she said. “Jordon is all I have got. I am trying to make his life safe and secure. It is so hard.”

Other DPD couriers clubbed together to contribute half of the cost of Lane’s £5,000 woodland burial and funeral last year, but Ruth Lane said DPD has provided no financial assistance. She said she has sold her car, no longer goes out and Jordon cuts her hair to save money.

The gig economy is growing fast with companies such as the minicab-hailing firm Uber and delivery firm Hermes also relying on self-employed workers to serve their customers. About 4.7m people in the UK work through a gig economy platform at least once a week, according to a study for the TUC which found the sector has more than doubled in size in the last three years.

But gig work does not guarantee minimum wage or offer sick pay, holiday pay or pension rights, and legal rulings in favour of workers’ rights have yet to take effect pending appeals, including at the supreme court.

After a public outcry at Don Lane’s death during the peak Christmas delivery season, DPD scrapped the £150 charges if drivers fail to find a replacement for their round when they want a day off.

DPD said: “Don Lane worked with DPD for 19 years and was a much-loved and valued member of our team. We were devastated by his death and, as a result, the company carried out a root and branch review of every aspect of our working relationship with our drivers and introduced a series of groundbreaking reforms.”

Ruth Lane is taking DPD to an employment tribunal, arguing in a case with 76 other couriers that her husband should have been treated as a worker, which would have afforded him holiday pay and a guaranteed minimum wage. She is also claiming that DPD’s decision to charge him for missing work to attend hospital amounts to disability discrimination. DPD is contesting the case.