There is definitely a place for palliative meds in the hospice phase. Many people are definitely in pain. That is a justifiable use of morphine.
I agree. I met my closest friend back in the mid 70's while I was still married. We moved into the bottom flat of a house right next door to them. When I met her, she was pregnant with her third child. She'd been a smoker her whole life, and was diagnosed with COPD about 10 years ago. It gradually got worse. Her husband had contracted a rare case of cancer of the larynx and pharynx about 8 years ago. He went through lengthy radiation and chemo treatments. She had to feed him through a feeding port, which literally saved his life. He lost weight, but not as much if she hadn't been so strict about feeding him as often as she could. He is a cancer survivor.
When Covid showed up, because of his compromised immune system, he insisted they get the Covid shots. He also kept just about everyone away from the house during the lockdown, even limiting visits from their own kids. I got a call from her daughter the first week of June that her mother was in the hospital, that she'd contracted Covid, been bad for three weeks. It damaged her lungs even more, and there was nothing more they could do for her. I saw her in the hospital before they moved her to hospice. At the same time, my youngest son was in the hospital with his a-fib and heart shock, so I didn't get to see her again before she passed. At the hospital, they were giving her breathing treatments, and regularly giving her morphine to help her breathing. It definitely calmed her down and kept the coughing at bay.