The Best Care For A Dying Patient

Sometimes continued hospital care is not the right avenue for dying patients because it does more harm than good to families in some cases. Sometimes home care is not the right avenue either because the patient needs more attention than a family can provide. In many cases, patients just need a place to die.

In one woman’s case, the hospice facility near her that provided inpatient hospice only accepted patients who were going to die within 6 days. For this one woman, extending her life at all costs was not beneficial to her or to her family. Her husband was already worn down from providing so much care up until this point and taking care of the children, and the children had already watched their mother slip away for too long. At the same time, her life was probably going to last a little longer than 6 days, so she was not left with anywhere to go to receive proper care. Eventually, a nurse was able to convince the hospice facility that she would only live 6 more days so that she could be admitted. At some point most families of aging or ill patients will be faced with these difficult decisions.

See Theresa Brown, Looking For A Place To Die, The New York Times, Dec. 21, 2011.

Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (WealthCounsel) for bringing this article to my attention.