Some Think Hospice Kills

Hospice does accelerate death. Hospice has the law on their side to make a person dying ,to dye faster. They take all meds away, put the patient unconscious , trapped in their body. Under a cruel agony till they dehydrate to the point their mouth bleed, the tongue gets hard , bloody , I had this experience as a caregiver. My best friend was totally alert before her daughter was convinced to sign hospice. Damm, my friend screamed for her daughter not to sign. She had a horrify death after 7 days in agony while each day a nurse came in stating she has hours or may 1 day at the time they increase the drugs . You will never see a hospice death certificate stating patient died of overdose with morphine and ativan every 2 hours, dehydrated breathing hard and fighting to live. Maybe wanting to say at least her last will, but No, every time she opened her eyes and tried to talk she got another dose immediately. I also have a aunt that all dactors were advising to put her in hospice because of septic and mental issues. Well thank God my cousing did not accetp the deadly offer. Its been 4 years and she is alive and in good health exept for her menthal issues. As for me hospice is cruel and their no one that will convince me. Pets get better treatment with Eustanacia , less suffering for the animal and the owner.
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BK Books replied:
Carol, I am sorry you have had such a challenging time concerning your thoughts and experience with hospice. I disagree with most of your assessment. Blessings! Barbara

I think Hospice killed my husband too. I’m going to have to go get grief counseling, but it sure won’t be Hospice! It’s been 6 months and I’m still grieving. I don’t know what to do.
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BK Books replied:
Roz, I think you are right about seeking a counselor to help you process your grief. Blessings! Barbara

My mom just went into hospice care 5 days ago..basically the dr said if you don’t let us sedate her, she has to go back to the nursing facility. At this point, WHY? Just hurty up and kill them off is the attitude they have. She is 88 and has pneumonia, parkinsons and many other issues. Basically the hospital put her put when they got tired of giving her meds. Hospice will also put you out if you don’t agree to their terms of drugging someone up till they die. I believe hospice does accelerate a persons death with drugs. They don’t like you to call it SEDATION..shame on our healthcare system all the way around..its sickening that you can’t die in a hospital lime before . there was no FREAKING HOSPICE !
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BK Books replied:
Nancy, I hear your frustration. Healthcare has changed so much and a lot of it is related to regulations saying what can and can’t be done, as well as how long you have to do it, in hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and yes, even hospices. My thoughts are that the patient and their families often get lost in and even hurt by “the system”. I disagree, however, with your assessment of hospice, pain medicine and ending lives. Blessings to you during this challenging time. Barbara

Pat, what a horrific experience! I hope you have contacted the hospice administrator and told her/him what happened. They can’t change what occurred but it may give them guidance to prevent a similar situation from happening. I am so sorry these are the memories you are now living with. Blessings! Barbara

Hospice killed my husband. The night before, at the hospital, he was eating and drinking ,alert, oriented, talking with me. I signed to hospice believing that he at least will have 6 months to live and who knows he could get better. He arrived home with hospice, talking, alert no pain. 1/2 hour later the nurse of death comes and gave him morphine and Ativan and he never regained full alertness again. They keep giving him morphine and was dead 13 hours later. He went from talking, alert, oriented x 3 to dying within a short period of time. He did have lung cancer, but the doctors didn’t expect him to die in hours at the hospital they said not too much time, but enough time to put in order his affairs and now he is dead.
I would never recommend hospice unless you want assisted suicide.

Jack, thank you for sharing your experiences. I am sorry your father and your family had the horrific experience that you had with a hospice. You are doing the appropriate thing in reporting the incident to medicare. I suggest you also have a sit down with the director of the hospice. They need to know what occurred so policies can be changed, staff can be re-educated and/or reprimanded and inappropriateness addressed.
My blessings are with you and your family. Barbara

I’ve had two experiences with Hospice.
My mother in law received excellent care in her last days. She lived a few weeks after coming home. The Hospice employees were beyond helpful and kind.
I was expecting my father to have a similar experience.
He lived a week after being diagnosed with cancer.
He only lived one day after a medical professional started holding him down to get the medication down.
It’s taken a while to realize that their care was something else. Was it assisted sucicide, euthanasia, or murder?
The day before he died their was 21 people in his home. He was having a party. No pain colmplaints.
They held this strong man down to give him the drugs.
I am going to file a complaint with Medicare and a civil suite for wrongful death.
My hope is to prevent these “professionals” from being involved in other deaths.
Poor, poor care.
There was four soiled pads left under the bed and syringes were left on the kitchen counter.

Hospice definitely kills and it makes me so angry that hardly anybody wants to acknowledge this. They doped both my mother and grandmother up on so many pain meds that they both fell into a coma. Couldn’t eat or drink. I didn’t know any better with my mom. They convinced me it was the cancer that was killing her but no. She was alert and eating one day and the day after they put her on all those drugs she was out of it. She fought so hard. In the nursing home they went behind my back and put my grandma on the fenty patch when she told them many times she was not in pain. She went from being alert, talking, and laughing to nodding out in her meals within 48hrs. She was dead within a week. Even the nurses confirmed that they didn’t understand why the doctors switched her meds when she clearly wasn’t in pain. These people and those who condone what they do are pure evil.

Monique, I am so sorry you had such a horrific experience. I hope you have reported your concerns to Medicare
https://www.medicare.gov/claims-appeals/how-to-file-a-complaint-grievance and to your state survey agency for nursing homes. (State Survey Agencies are usually part of your States department of health services.)
My blessings are with you and your family . Barbara

Hospice starved my dad to death gave him morphin every hour when he clearly didn’t need it , all bc he has Alzheimer’s broke his hip how he broke it is still unknown to us when he clearly couldn’t walk for over a yr and a half before how did he fall ? They wanted to get rid of him ! I live with this guilt everyday that I didn’t stop them I did t know what we could do , my mom never wanted morphin to be given to him but they forced us bc one morning he didn’t eat and hospice and the nursing home said he was dying , No my Dad still had life in him they killed him , I’m sorry but that’s how I feel , they wouldn’t try feeding him nor give him fluids, I will never get these images Out of my head !

I’m so glad this is written and posted. People need to see what really happens with Hospice care.

Dear Karen, what a horrific experience for your parents, you and your entire family. I suggest, if you haven’t already, file a complaint with Medicare. 1-800-633-4227 or Medicare.gov/claims-appeals/fileacomplaint. From your experience this is abuse on so many levels. You also should talk at length with the hospice administration and the residential facility administration. Your experience needs to be recorded. Your parents cannot be helped now but your action can protect others in the future. As you said, not all hospices are bad but from your experience this particular one does not represent the original hospice philosophy in intent or practice. You are in a position to make a difference. By your speaking out your parents experience will not have been in vain.
My blessings to you. Barbara

I’m sure there are many people who have had wonderful experiences with Hospice, but there are also many of us who have been forever changed, for the worse, because of them. I’m one of those people.

Both of my parents had dementia and ended up on Hospice as a way to help them stay in their home, which they desperately wanted. Hospice listed them as patients with six months or less to live, but assured us they did not feel they would die within that time frame, it was just what they had to do in order to get Medicare to cover the costs. In fact, both of my parents were incredibly healthy for their ages.

Despite Hospice in home care, they ended up in an adult care home that had a hospice wing. They were moved up the list, so to speak, because they were already on Hospice. The home had a long waiting list and entering the hospice wing meant they could move in quickly. This was a huge mistake!

My parents did not go to this home to die, but rather, to live a safer life.

Within no time at all, they were both being “controlled” with Seroquel, prescribed by Hospice. Seroquel is a antipsychotic drug. My parents were not psychotic, they had dementia. They were simply too active for this home. The other residents were all very docile, sitting in wheelchairs with their mouths open, unable to communicate or feed themselves. At first I thought these poor souls had all had strokes or some other debilitating illness that left them in this state. It didn’t take long to realize they, too, were being controlled with Seroquel or some other drug. Docile patients make the caregivers job so much easier! My Dad turned into one of those zombies, and it broke my heart.

One of the most dangerous side effects of Seroquel use for the elderly is strokes. I voiced my fears, but was ignored. Four months after moving to this home, Dad suffered a stroke. At the Hospice Nurses recommendation, my sisters chose to take a “wait and see” attitude, and my Dad was not sent to the hospital, nor was a doctor called in. He passed away 10 days later.

I was there on that last day, and saw employees from the home shooting a blue liquid substance into his mouth. He was dying, thinner than I’d ever seen him, unable to speak, walk, communicate, acknowledge I was there or anything else. They told me the medicine was to help with his pain.

At the time, I did not know about Hospice reputation for euthanizing patients. It was only later that I started putting two and two together, and I now feel Hospice hastened my Dad’s death by not giving him the medical help he needed, and by dousing him with liquid Morphine (the blue liquid). I will never know for sure.

The day after my dad died, my mother fell three times. The Seroquel did not create the zombie, docile person they had hoped for, but instead, made her very agitated and angry. Hospice kept upping her dose until she was being given enough to kill a large man, as per my nurse daughter in law. When she realized how much they were giving my mom, she questioned the head of the Hospice wing, who agreed it was a very high dose, but said their hands were tied, as they were following Hospice orders.

When I questioned both the home and Hospice about this, I was told it’s better to have her “silly” than angry. By silly, they meant hallucinating, blurred vision and loosing her balance, which was causing her falls. Better for who?

The home and Hospice decided Mom most likely broke her hip with her last fall, even though mom was able to stand afterwards, but saying her hip hurt. I approved a mobile xray to be ordered so we could know for sure, but the Hospice nurse convinced my sisters that an xray would be too painful for Mom, and it was cancelled. My mom was then put on the liquid morphine protocol, saying it was to prevent her from hurting her hip any further.

It didn’t take long before it started to sink in what they were doing. She was being kept in a morphine induced coma, with no food or fluids being given to her. They were euthanizing my mother. I tried to get my sisters to understand this but somehow, the Hospice Nurse had convinced them this was the kind and moral thing to do.

An xray was ordered several times, and several times it was cancelled.. An xray was finally done after a family battle, but too late for my mother. She passed away 2 days later from starvation and dehydration, 10 days after her ordeal began.

Two days later, I finally received the results of the xray. My mother had not broken her hip. It was simply bruised from falling.. My mother was euthanized for having a “maybe” broken hip. I think it’s more likely that my mother was euthanized for having dementia. We all need to consider what that might mean for any of us! How is that even legal in this country?

On top of loosing both my parents within a 10 day period, I have lost all relationship with my sisters, who I no longer trust. Some hospice may be a God send for some families, but for others, they have the power to destroy relationships.

My husband and I have promised each other that we will never allow Hospice in each others lives, and our children know our wishes. I’m sure there are very kind and caring hospice employees out there, but how would you know until, God forbid, it’s too late?

This is something I now have to live with, and the last few years have been very difficult. There is, of course, a lot more to this story, but for me, I wish I had fought my sisters harder. I wish I could have stopped this from happening. My parents deserved a much kinder ending. I do not think either one of my parents would have chosen death by starvation and dehydration.

It’s one thing for someone in pain to want Hospice to help them end their suffering, but for someone to have no say, and to have their death hastened by a Nurse who decides she knows best is quite something else.

I know many will not believe this kind of thing actually happens. I probably would not have believed it before I lived it. But it is happening, more than people realize.

Susan, I am so sorry you had such a horrific experience with hospice as your mother was dying. I hope you spoke with the director of the hospice about what happened. Administration needs to know. My thoughts are with you. Barbara

I do believe that hospice care is responsible for the death of my mother they gave her morphine every hour or less she only weighed 72 pounds how much did they think she could take they have no right to play god and I will never forget that they killed my mother she was unconscious and they still gave her more I asked the nurse to please stop and she replied that she had to I told my family never put me in the hospice they have a license to kill

Dear Cindy, I am so sorry to hear how your father died. The experience was truly horrific. The challenge now is to figure out how to live forward and put the images out of your mind. You don’t want the memory of your father’s death to take the place of the good memories of his life. Have you contacted the hospice director and told her your story. The hospice administration needs to know what has happened in its ranks. You talking gives them the opportunity to see that other’s are not treated as poorly. What happened to your father cannot be undone but make it not in vain by reporting the situation. You might write your father a letter. Put your thoughts, anger, frustration, sorrow on paper. Tell him what you are carrying in your heart, how badly you feel at the way he died. No one needs to see it. When finished burn the letter and scatter the ashes into the air, releasing the feelings that you are carrying.
Cindy, my thoughts and blessings are with you. It is challenging to be at the bedside as a loved one is dying when all is going as it should. It is overpowering when unnecessary suffering occurs Again, I am so sorry. Barbara

As an RN, I can tell you that my father’s experience was less than humane. He was transferred to the hospice center on a Sunday; he walked into the center. Yes, he was terminal and yes he definitely was dying. Upon admission, he told the nurse that he had pain on urination but they ignored it despite the fact that he had been complaining to his nurse for a week prior. I never left his side during the last 8 days of his life. The nurses continually refused to treat his UTI and he suffered horribly. By day 4 he was in so much pain he was moaning and couldnt sleep. By day 5 his kidneys were shutting down and it was his worst night. We finally succumbed to the morphine pump . I was severely sleep deprived and the hospice nurse told me to “press the button on the pump every 10 minutes”. Please note that my father was comfortable before they gave me the handheld device to give him a bolts. Every 10 minutes? She was rushing his death. I finally realized what was happening and stopped pressing the button after several hours. The nurse was having me snow my own father. The guilt I feel will never lea e me. To make matters worse my father’s defibrillator was reportedly disabled. That Friday he was repeatedly shocked for 30+ minutes until the nurse and I figured it out. She placed a magnet over the pacer and it finally stopped. My father did not die with dignity. I must say that many people have a very positive experience wit hospice but ours was not.

Dear Rebekah, I am so sorry to hear of your difficult experience with hospice as your loved one was dying. Living through the dying experience is challenging and emotionally draining without having those who are supposed to provide care and comfort not doing their job. If you have the energy (and you may not) following up with administrators of the company and even writing a complaint to Medicare could affect how others are treated in the future. It may also bring a tiny bit of peace in your grieving. My blessings are with you. Barbara

My loved one was on hospice. His nurse and the social worker were great but the administration of the company was horrible. This was my first experience with hospice and it was a nightmare. He had a picc line and was unable to swallow pills most days. I was his advocate and I called to see about getting a morphine pump. They let him go 13 days with almost no pain medication. It took me as well as a friend and a previous nurse of his calling the company to get the pump sent out. Then about a month after that, he was having uncontrolled nausea and was vomiting the oral medications. He had a stoma and a suppository wasn’t really an option for several reasons. The nurse originally told me that they could put anti-nausea medication through his picc line but the company refused. i complained several times to the hospital that owned the company as well as made a complain to the state. My loved one told me that this experience was hell. In the end they completely refused anything for nausea, although he wanted to eat, and he went 20 days before he passed.

I hold workshops to get advance directives done. Also, when I’m working with families on advance care planning, I have them interview 3 hospice agencies. It’s part of educating them that hospice doesn’t kill, the disease does. Thanks for a good article.

I don’t think we could have done this without hospice. although my wife was under their care for over 5 months and my wife slowly lost her grip on life. she had bone cancer and was in extreme pain, although she never complained. hospice was always there for her, giving her loving care. during her struggle with life, she had to have large doses of morphine to control the pain. the nurse said at that stage you were really not overdosing her with drugs as her pain was beyond help and that her body functions were shutting down. I truly believe hospice were like angels sent from heaven preparing my wife for her final journey. my wife was allowed to die at home surrounded by her family. this was only made possible by hospice.

Hi Barbara,
Thanks for the blog post on Hospice Kills. I believe as you stated the reasons for this very common misconception are multifaceted. I feel one of the primary reasons is the ignorance of the medical community specifically the community physicians. We have physicians in the community that believe “Hospice Kills”.
Education is needed across the board and my service is not interested in taking the lead. I have been advocating for outreach education on the full-time basis with our community physicians. No one wants to spend the money. It is so frustrating. Thanks for listening.
Mike

Carole- were you aware of the goals and outcomes of Hospice care for end of life situations? Allowing your loved one to pass on without pain or discomfot, and WITH comfot and dignity are two important premises. Fearfulness, anxiety, agitation & restlessness are all characteristics of end of life behaviors. Was that how you invisioned your loved one passing and moving on? Death is a process which moves through stages. Could it be possible that the Ativan was the means to peacefulness at the end of life for your Mom as opposed to ending her life?

Hi Donna, thank you for your comments on our blog. You mentioned two people who were admitted to Hospice and died shortly after morphine was given for pain management. I do not have enough medical information to comment on the two individual situations. I will make some general statements.
Hospice is thought of as taking care of people who are dying. Because of that they get referrals of patients when they are actively dying. Families of those patients are generally not aware of how close their loved one is to actually dying. The person dies within days and it is thought to be hospice’s fault.
People are very aware of the opiod problem this country is facing. What most people don’t know is how narcotics are used in end of life care. People think about overdosing because that is where our mind is in relationship to society challenges. It is actually very hard to overdose a person who has a lot of pain. It is the healthy body with no pain that generally dies of an overdose.
When a person is days to hours from death the body is not processing medications normally. Their circulation is slowed which affects the ability of a narcotic to get through the system. The narcotic is not doing its job let alone being enough to kill someone.
It is our lack of understanding, our lack of adequate education in end of life comfort management that leads to families believing morphine killed their loved one.
If hospice is at fault I think it is because there has been a lack of family education.
Blessings! Barbara

Barbara: Thank you for your comments. It is something that will have to be repeated many times more because many people have trouble accepting that death is certain we just don’t know when and how. In my law practice of estate planning so many times my client would say, “if I die” and I would have to gently correct saying, “it’s not if, it’s when”. That correction was necessary to guide their thinking to practical planning as opposed to being unrealistic while under the delusion that death was mere speculation.

Hi Barbara,

I would really be interested in reading a blog post you would write on pain management while in hospice. I recently had two male friends in hospice with pain. One a Parkinson’s patient who got a brain bleed from a fall and one from liver cancer, spreading throughout his body. The first died within a week of hospice placement and the second the next day after hospice treatment. Both were given Morphine for their pain. The subject of eventual overdose and amount of dosage was discussed by the women grieving…..

Thank you,

Donna

I’ve read your blogs since my husband passed away in June, 2017, and appreciate your explaining the dying process and Hospice’s part in comforting the patient as they go through the process. My Dad was cared for by Hospice 5 years ago and I witnessed the role that Hospice played in his final weeks and days. As the weeks went by and Hospice explained his condition, we realized his death was eminent and prepared ourselves for the finality of his life. Then as we watched him gradually and calmly succumb, we knew he was not in pain and it comforted our anxiety. My husband was also cared for by Hospice this year and although there were many feelings to endure in his last months, I felt confident Hospice would help my family through the process. I realized that letting him face his death painlessly after a long period of declining health and pitiful symptoms was the Humane approach to take rather than extending his certain end with unnatural means. Just as you say, Hospice certainly doesn’t kill people but rather allows them to peacefully and comfortably meet a timely and certain appointment.

Hi Carole, I am sorry to hear you did not have the opportunity to talk with your mother before she died. There are always so many things we wish we would have said after an opportunity is gone. May I suggest that you write her a letter. Write is now even though she is gone. Put in the letter all the things you wanted to say but did not get the chance. After you have written the letter, burn it and toss the ashes to the wind. See your message flying to her. Know some part of her will know the contents of your heart.
Blessings! Barbara

Hi Pam, thank you for your comment on my blog. I just want to reassure you that giving a doctor prescribed narcotic dosage does not hasten death. It reduces physical pain and can ease labored breathing. There are so many misconceptions about narcotics, and administering an overdose is one of them.
You might want to scroll through some of my other blog posts where I talk about morphine and its use at end of life. One thing to know is if you give a dose of morphine or pain medicine and a few minutes later the person dies it was not the drug. If death is that close the circulation is almost non existent and the drug has not had time to get into the system let alone do anything.
Blessings! Barbara

Hi Marilyn, I would love for you to use and share my blog posts—any of them, that is why I write them. I appreciate you giving me credit. Certainly put them on your sites.
Thanks for asking. Barbara

Good Morning William, I read your response to my blog post on “Hospice Kills”. I disagree with your comment that there are “campaigns" promoting dying as “horrific—with under managed symptoms and financial ruin” in order to advocate for physician assisted dying. In fact fewer people than expected have selected the very comprehensive, extensive process of being accepted into the program. Also the drugs are very expensive making actually getting them difficult. I am aware of numbers of hospices that have worked with people who have gotten the approval. The patient and their families need not be alone. Our work is not to judge people in their end of life decisions but to offer support, guidance and comfort.
Blessings! Barbara

I teach a five hour class on completing “your” Advance Directive in CA. at CSULB. I reference the The Final Act of Living throughout the class; spending time on hospice. It definitely is misunderstood. And thanks to sister (retired RN hospice), I keep a variety of pamphlets on hand.

Thank you for bringing up this important and false perception about hospice. I do hear this comment about hospice hastening death. I have a hard time reaching out and shaking the person by the shoulder to say “You don’t know what you’re talking about!” But I don’t do that. I try and think of one thing which might allow them to reconsider that falsehood. So I answer that it isn’t logical. If you think hospice is making money by hastening death that is not logical. You can’t charge for care if that person is no longer alive.

So much more to say and educate but for now that’s my one liner to get them to think. I continue to read and educate myself for better ways to explain in just an instant.

Hospice has assisted my family on 2 different occassions (1. my children’s father, 2. My father). We couldn’t have done it without them.
Thank you

I love that you approached/addressed this myth. In celebration of hospice month….We are hoping to educate our communities re: hospice, what we can provide? stories of how we have made a difference…
Are we able to use your article? We of course would post where the info comes from

Please let us know if we can post on our site and sites of a few facilities where we are doing education.

Thank you so much for considering either way.

My father had Parkinson’s and was put on Hospice his last few weeks of life and all the Hospice Nurses and Caretakers were wonderful. They always took the time to explain to us what was happening and tried to brace us for what to expect even though it’s very hard to watch a loved one go through this natural dying process. I was with my father till the very end and I am grateful that I was able to be there with him till his very last breath. Parkinson’s Disease took my father from us way to early. This natural way of death is very hard for loved ones to understand because we want to do everything we can to help them live even when there is nothing more to be done.

My mother received hospice care at the end of her life. It was a difficult time, especially so because she chose to die by refusing to eat and receiving morphine for the chronic pain she was experiencing. One night she became very fearful and anxious. She requested something to calm her and the hospice nurse gave her Ativan, which caused her to be unconscious until she died. I so wish I had been told of this possibility so that I could have realized and address this last time for our us to talk. Otherwise I found hospice to be a supportive and experience for my mom and my brother and me.

my wife passed away in our home surrounded by her family. she had been under hospice care from Feb to the end in Jun. I can say that hospice was there for her 24/7. they were so kind and respectful to her and family. I believe she was happy at passing after her long and enduring struggle with bone cancer. although she was in extreme pain, she somehow seemed more relaxed toward the very end. she required large and often doses of morphine near the end. she slept most of the time the last few days and although she really didn’t speak those last days, you could see it in her eyes she understood what we were saying and by a slight squesse of her hand.
hospice personnel have to be a special breed of people as in the end their patients pass away. they pour out their hearts for their patients. knowing full well, their patient is spending their last few weeks, days are numbered. they go out of their way to assure their patient is comfortable as possible with respect to their dignity. I can’t thank hospice enough for their loving care they gave to my wife. god bless them

I agree with everything written here today…my biggest disagreement is that one person in the family usually ends up administering these medications at the end of life, and that is a very heavy burden to bear…both at the time and for the rest of time….there should be a better way…in a hospital setting at least,a nurse does that….but when you take the person home, as were my dad’s wishes, it fell on me to give him his morphine, etc…and I found myself using them extremely sparingly because I knew what they would do…there should be a better way!

Another great explanation and furthering of understanding. Thank you,Barbara. I had worked in a SNF as DNS for about ten years when I was approached by another SNF to develop and direct their new Hospice Program. By accepting that position, my awareness and knowledge of what Hospice is and does was exponentially expanded. It made me realize how much having a true understanding of the process and outcomes of Hospice would have enhanced my own ability, that of my staff and of our entire facility to truly provide better end of life care, as well as family support. Years later, when I returned to the position of DNS in a different SNF that did not provide Hospice services, I was able to educate my Nursing staff, CNAs, Administration and our attending physicians (including the Medical Director who required a lot of convincing) about Hospice. We then developed a relationship with a very fine Hospice that made it possible to provide the incredibly gentle educational and supportive care that all patients, family and loved ones deserve . I know that the presence of the Hospice Program greatly enhanced the overall standard of care that was being provided.

Great info. Would love to have the books. Puting them on my wishlist.

In addition to the traditional counterpart, dying in an acute care setting, we must also pay attention to the counterpart in several states now. Compassion & Choices has portrayed the alternative to physician-assisted suicide as being a lingering, horrific death of undermanaged symptoms and financial ruin for patients’ families. In some ways, this caricature simply omits Hospice from the equation entirely. But for those exposed to the hyperbole of their campaigns, and aware of the opportunity to enroll in hospice care, the horror they portray can only be understood to be Hospice. Perhaps this has already been addressed in your writings. But there is a great danger of losing traditional hospice care as C&C’s false dichotomy gains traction in more states, and more traction in the states where physician-assisted suicide has already become legal.

I can understand this misconception and am glad you addressed it so thoroughly. Although in all my years as a nurse, I have never heard that Hospice kills. I agree that it would come from lack of knowledge in the dying process, but also it seems like a place for loved ones to put their anger, directing it at Hospice.

Without Hospice we would be back in the Middle Ages.
It is the most important piece at the end of life, which is inevitable.

It is what it is !!! Accept it, and deal with it !!!
GOOGLE it, and learn not to be so afraid……

It is very natural !!!!

I remember one time when I was volunteering in a hospice 2 patients, on the same day, said they didn’t know why they were here and couldn’t believe that the doctor sent them here. This made me wonder about what the doctor, likely in a hospital, had told them about their disease (both had cancer), its stage and the prognosis? I know that no one likes to hear they have a terminal illness and perhaps only 6 months or less to live — and perhaps they couldn’t hear what was being told at that time. From my experience it is often the doctors who do not know how to really talk with the patients about end of life especially when it is upon them. There needs to be training in medical school and in-services to help doctors, and nurses too, be able to deliver end of life news in a way that people will understand and ultimately accept. This may require several discussions which the medical person may not have time for. If that is the case, then there needs to be additional professionals who can do it. This is part of the dignity that people especially deserve in the end. If we were not such a death phobic society, people might have a better understand and be more open about death and dying for their loved ones and themselves. If we educated people about death they would understand that hospice does not kill!

I have so much respect for the professionals in hospice that provide comfort and caring for the dying and family. Hospice is a blessing.

I saw first hand Hospice. Helps people be comfortable during a very trying process. Is it wonderful? Ye, and no because you don’t want your loved one to die. But I saw no one was trying to kill my brother. All around except for one seemed genuinely concerned with his care…the other was more interested in her clinical biology language and not the person.