(Snippets from the frontline)
Dying from hospice
Compassionate care must be provided at end-of-life minimizing pain and suffering. Inexperience, poor training, and greed by some hospice agencies though reveals an egregious practice of medicine that borders on criminal.
At their discretion, some hospice groups stop or change medication including blood thinners, hypertensive drugs, and even insulin. Of course, this could cause patient death before the actual terminal illness.
Some are admitted to hospice without the family, primary doctor, or even the patient knowing. Nursing and ancillary home care are promised but not fulfilled due to inadequate staffing, while medication used to quell pain and suffering is not readily available.
If there is a problem like urinary tract infection, antibiotics aren’t given. Should there be more serious yet simple treatable illness, they won’t transfer the patient to the hospital because “it is against the rules.”
Standardization of care remains absent, while oversight authorities have been slow to react to these problems.
All hospice patients deserve compassionate care, as no one should face pain and suffering at end-of-life.
Gene Uzawa Dorio, M.D.
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