Hospice and palliative care: Living with courage, dying well
By Eileen T Geller, RN, BSN
About Hospice...
Unfortunately, many people have a mistaken impression about hospice care: they seem to think it is about dying, rather than about living. In fact, the opposite is true: The focus is of hospice is positive-it's about life, albeit about the latter part of life. As a movement, hospice seeks to enable people to live well and fully, comfortably, with dignity and lived compassion.
Hospice care is designed to provide relief of physical and emotional pain and suffering when a cure is no longer possible. The concept encompasses holistic care for people with life-limiting illnesses and their families. Physicians, registered nurses, social workers, chaplains,' home health aides, and volunteers work together to provide pain control and symptom management, along with a compassionate accompaniment along the path of life's final journey.
Dr Cicely Saunders, founder of St Christopher's hospice in London, stated: "There is always something you can do. We need to get back into general medicine the concept of the patient as a person and help with the symptoms even when nothing can be done for the disease."
Most hospice services are covered by Medicare, Medicaid, or private insurance-usually resulting in few, if any charges for patients and families. (Medicare and Medicaid are usually completely without cost for hospice services-private insurance may have some associated costs.)
If you're unsure as to whether you or your loved one qualifies for hospice services, just call an area hospice and request a free consult visit-or speak to an intake nurse for more information.
For more information about hospice services or finding a hospice near you, please contact the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. For people who reside in Washington State, a partial list of assisted suicide-free hospices can be found here.
Note: Please exercise care in seeking hospice services. You may wish to ascertain that the hospice you are considering is in synch with most national and international hospices and will not be involved in the assisted suicides of vulnerable patients entrusted to their care.
About Hospice and Assisted Suicide
As an international movement, hospice "neither hastens nor postpones the moment of death." Some individual hospices may be out of step with these founding and guiding principles, but for the most part, national and international hospice organizations actively oppose both physician assisted suicide and euthanasia.
Sandol Stoddard, one of the founders and leaders of the hospice movement in the United States, put it this way to the New York Times in 1991-and her comments remain true to this day:
"Much of the current suicide controversy seems to be based on a pair of false assumptions. The first is that seriously ill people must expect agonies and humiliations from which death itself is the only merciful release. This is not so. Hospice patients are treated with respect. They are not attached to machines that prolong dying while destroying whatever quality of life remains. A great deal more can be done today than was possible in the past to relieve the pain of conditions such as terminal cancer."
"The second false assumption is perhaps less obvious but more dangerous to society. Privately, too many of us believe that human perfection can be achieved-that if we can find the correct program with all the directions on the package we can be thin, beautiful..and powerful forever. Such a shallow, simplistic view of life may seem innocent enough on the surface. But underneath, it is the unspoken, often unconscious conviction that those who are very ill, very old, or very frail have not done it right and should not be among us."
"Thousands of hospice workers in this country today are witness to the fact that people who are comfortable, secure, and lovingly cared for do not want to commit suicide. ..We need to remember a lesson history has taught us; that its but a short step that leads from assisted suicide to homicide, to genocide and the ultimate moral abyss."
This web site offers general information rather than medical, social service, or mental health advice. For specific information about medications or to obtain pain control assistance or symptom management for you or someone you care about, please consult with your physician, hospice professional , or other qualified health care provider.
For more information on our important disclaimer.