[BykrBayb]

Hospitals are under no obligation to continue palliative care when there is no hope for recovery.

Your medical advice is almost as trustworthy as your religious guidance, Deacon. Do you even know what palliative care is?

[sinkspur]

However, euthanasia must be distinguished from the stopping of extraordinary means of health care or other aggressive medical treatment. The patient — or guardian in the case of an unconscious patient — has the right to reject outright or to discontinue those procedures which are extraordinary, no longer correspond to the real situation of the patient, do not offer a proportionate good, do not offer reasonable hope of benefit, impose excessive burdens on the patient and his family, or are simply "heroic." Such a decision is most appropriate when death is clearly imminent and inevitable. Here a person may refuse forms of treatment which at best provide a precarious and burdensome prolonging of life. In these cases, the person would place himself in God's hands and prepare to leave this life, while maintaining ordinary means of health care.

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[sinkspur]

Palliative care (from Latin palliare, to cloak) is any form of medical care or treatment that concentrates on reducing the severity of the symptoms of a disease or slows its progress rather than providing a cure. It aims at improving quality of life, by reducing or eliminating pain and other physical symptoms, enabling the patient to ease or resolve psychological and spiritual problems, and supporting the partner and family.

An acute care hospital does not provide palliative care. Children's Medical Center is an acute care facility.

Hospice and nursing homes provide palliative care.