Now, in the US, we have hospices. In theory, a hospice is for someone who is at death's door. The hospital has done what it can, and there is no longer any real point to being in the ICU. Perhaps it's best to go home, be with family, and just pass on. In our modern society, that's about the most "natural" way anyone can die.
However, there is the matter of pain management. No one wants to see a loved one in pain, so when the hospice people start the morphine drip, it just seems like a kindness. What could be wrong?
Well, in my experience, hospice ends up amounting to assisted suicide. The morphine drip is increased day by day until it affects the breathing, and the patient dies. It almost seems like policy.
Maybe, if the patient really is going anyway, then this is a painless way to go. But I have a hard time with it. I think the medical establishment really is killing people in America.
Let me tell you something that I know about first hand.When your spouse is laying in bed gasping for air like a fish out of water, and a drip of morphine calms their breathing to where they die peacfuly instead of a violent gasp, then come back and talk to me about it. In todays medical world we can virtualy keep a body alive with machines to the point where the body itself is doing very little to stay alive.Hospitals are required to administer any and all life saving procedures unless the patient or gaurdian has signed a DNR, at that point the body is left to die on it’s own naturaly and if a simple drip of morphine makes it a peaceful departure instead of a violent one, tell me why shouldn’t it be used.
My mother died of cancer 9 years ago and we had hospice for the last 6 weeks or so.
They were absolutely great! They did not intentionally dose her meds to end her life sooner. In fact, it would have been humane to have given her more meds during the last 12 hours of her life, even if it would have ended her life a few hours sooner. Cancer is a rough way to go and the last hours are torture.
I have seen patients that have such large doses of narcotics that would kill you or me and it just allows them enough pain relief to be able to walk the halls....The tolerance to narcotics makes upping the dose a normal thing.
If I were terminal, I wouldn't want pain meds to be withheld just because the doctor or nurse were afraid it might hasten my death...
It a line that all doctors that deal with cancer patients have to work on.....
The intent is relief not death, death is the outcome of keeping someone terminal in a lot of pain or giving them some relief...
I vote for relief of pain....for many the pain can be unbearable...