I have posted on here many times and answered questions every now and then. Dad passed away Oct 7th 2013 from Liver Cancer . He was in a hospice facility for 11 days until he died. The day before he was admitted he was in the hospital and was talking,eating and very clear headed but his ammonia levels were high and he had been very combative, not eating and wouldn't take his meds for 4 days at his nursing home. ( He was in for a Psych Evaluation.) The hospice worker talked to me about admitting him instead of returning to the nursing home. I agreed to this and arrangements were made. He was transferred later that day and was alert and in good spirits. The next morning he was unresponsive and stayed that way until he passed. They gave him morphine and ativan around the clock. He never got any water but they did cleanse his mouth and moisten it with swabs. It seemed like he could hear me the first few days because I would shake his shoulder and say "dad". His eyes seemed to be moving under his eyelids and his mouth would move slightly. I did ask about them lowering his dosages so he could wake up a little. The nurse said he was getting a very small dosage already. I just wonder if the drugs made him unresponsive and if less was used he could have ate and drank and lived longer. I know it was time for him to go but I'm kinda puzzled about his going from complete alertness and straight into unresponsiveness so quick. The nurses did a Great job. I myself don't know how they do it. They treated dad like he was their baby. So gentle and compassionate. I was just wondering if anyone else had the feeling that death felt a little rushed once their loved one was placed in Hospice.
Your personal experience with one hospice is probably because you don't listen or don't want to hear what they have to say despite them being utter professionals in palliative care - some thing you are not.
If you have a problem deal with it through the courts and let them decide where blame lies - it's called put up or shut up. Either way it serves no purpose to behave in such a discriminatory way on here or is it perhaps that you daren't say it to their faces for fear of being sued?
Pasalire, you are certainly right that there are some practitioners (doctors, nurses, managers) in elder care who do place quality of life higher in the order of care priorities than others do. And when they go too far and make quality of life the *only* consideration, and further make a judgement about their patient's quality of life that they have no business to make, and take the decision to end it that they have no business to take, then their treatment does amount to euthanasia; and euthanasia without informed consent is murder, however nobly intended. That much is true, and that far I agree with you. But the number of practitioners who behave in this way is tiny. Probably it's roughly the same as the number of practitioners who throw everything but the kitchen sink at keeping their patients alive no matter how terrible their suffering or how futile the exercise. These people are at the extremes of the spectrum. By far the majority, like all of us, are juggling difficult, conflicting choices and making the best judgements they can.
Patients with severe dementia cannot communicate that they are in pain, yet can be in severe pain. I am glad that your Dad graduated from Hospice and he is now back home. But his severe dementia is still there and other complications will eventually show up. What will you do when Hospice is offered later down the road? Let your Dad be in serious pain so that you can prove a point?
nurses are killing our loved ones.
Think on this. i worked for ten years as the on-call nurse for a small county hospice. Our service area was over 700 square miles and for 126 hours a week 3 weeks out of four I had to visit every patient who called even if there was a blizzard and the temps below zero any time of the night. For holidays such as Thanksgiving I would work four straight days and nights when it was my turn.
Do you think I endured all that in my 60s just to go out and murder people.
You are entitled to your opinions and beliefs but please do not pollute this forum, which is designed to educate and comfort people caring for loved ones at the end of life.
I really wish the Admins would just remove this thread, it's very name is provocative and invites the inflammatory comments so common here.
Year in year out hospices provide expert care and support to both adults and children with life-limiting or terminal conditions as well as their friends and families. Many families have found hospices have eased the minds of those both passing and those left behind
Hospice care and support is based on the belief that everyone matters all the way through their life until the moment they die, and that NO ONE should die in avoidable pain, suffering or emotional distress. It also means they will respect the wishes of the individual NOT OF THEIR FAMILY.
I am just really glad you are not my offspring. I want to die without pain and with dignity. If morphine will kill me so be it, if it kills the pain too. Why should I have to live in constant pain and distress because someone else says I have to. You appear to have overlooked personal rights of the individual by making such generic comments and I for one am opposed to such a wholescale attack on them.
If you succeed in making people afraid to contact hospice organisations when their loved ones are dying, you will cause untold suffering to patients and unspeakable guilt on the part of their caregivers. Do share your experiences, yes, please do; but do not accuse the whole hospice movement of being intent on murder.
Then all the sudden a rash of new posters who never wrote on the forums before, never asked questions or answered other posters who had questions elsewhere on the forums. It's very easy to trace. Shame if you are using multi-monikers.
Not saying this the case for every poster as there are posters who have been on the forums for awhile who lost a loved one and felt something wasn't quite right. Their feelings are legit, such as the original poster Rosie.
Or, the caregivers as a group can drown out the haters:
1) Stop posting to them, opposing them, just ignore them.
2) Drown them out with multiple positive experiences, again not mentioning how you disagree-but instead-keep on topic, post positive, supportive, and uplifting comments.
3) If a topic is fraught with controversy, ignore it-don't fight over it. Just not worth it to try to reason with or persuade those with opposing views.
Moving to my favorite things...