No way this happened. |
Not the PP but trust me, it happens. |
Maryland resident in a poor county. Many in this area get their loved ones in hospice for the free depends and the free hospital beds.
My experience is that seniors are very, very vulnerable when enrolled in hospice. My sister had Mom enrolled in hospice. Mom was walking a mile a day. Mom had a bad reaction to bactrim. Sister called the out of state off hours call center and the remote RN who knew nothing of MOm told sister to start giving morphine. When I left town Mom was walking a mile a day and walking around the house. When I returned I could not find MOm in the house. I finally found her. She was unkempt and sitting in a wheel chair. She had never sat in a wheel chair in her life. She had been on morphine for 3 days. If I had not returned from my trip Mom would have been dead in several more days. Got her off of the morphine. She suffered severe pain for about a week from morphine induced constipation. I threw hospice out of the house. Mom is still with us 6 years later. I forgot to mention the RN when Mom was enrolled said morphine would not hasten death. It clearly knocked out a lady who was walking a mile a day and would have hastened death. I had to go to a lot of professional counseling sessions after this incident. |
That was my MIL but she was able to last a bit longer than 3 days without eating. She also had a DNR. It's awful. But, if the person just wants to give up, what can you do? She did not want to go on anymore. She lost all mobility, and she was very weak. The hospital at least gave my MIL pain meds so she shouldn't be in pain. She passed away in her sleep. |
dp.. why? If a person has the will to live they will eat. If they don't, they stop eating. This happened to my MIL (pp). The hospital at least gave her pain meds so she go peacefully. When I'm super old and have lost my mobility, I hope the hospital is humane enough to give me pain meds if I no longer want to go on. It's inhumane to make them suffer at the end. |
whereas in red states they don't want to provide any healthcare and reject medicaid expansion? |
You need a terminal diagnosis to qualify for hospice. Sorry you had a bad experience, pp. Our family used hospice providers for DH’s great grandmother, father and my parents. We had great experiences with them and there were three different agencies in two states. Providers need to be vetted and monitored. |
Horrifying. I bet you did! I was completely traumatized by hospice too. I helped as long as I could with my aunt, but had to go home (cross country) after she was admitted inpatient. Despite a DNR, doc at hospice revived her and then they started calling me daily and screaming at me to come back so she could go home. They wanted her out of the hospice center. I finally told them I was going to report them to the board if they called one more time. Your situation is even more disturbing and I'm glad you made it home in time. |
You can come in and out of hospice and the line is now blurred due to what they call palliative care. |
No your body starts shutting down and you stop eating. It is not a decision a person makes. |
There are no good choices. I went through this with my mom. We let her make her own choices. She chose in-home hospice. By the time she entered hospice she had figured out she couldn’t climb the stairs to her room so she did agree to a hospital bed in the living room. What I didn’t understand is that hospice is someone coming in a few minutes, a few times a week, eventually ramping up to every day. I thought she’d have care. My elderly dad wanted to do it all without hiring care so we waited too long to bring in an agency. I don’t know what people do who can’t afford aides. |
I'm sorry OP, as so many others have said - there really aren't "good" solutions at this stage. The reality is what it is and that's hard, no matter the path.
FWIW, I found that the "best" choice was the one that ensured safety. That often wasn't the preferred choice of my mother (or father), but it was a standard that made sense to me and that has helped me feel at peace w/ decisions I had to make at key stages. So home wasn't an option unless we could make it safe (and it wasn't always), rehab sometimes was necessary, a nursing home was necessary, hospice care with live-in staff was necessary, etc... - all at different points (and with different people and different health challenges). Safety first. Then you make the best of whatever rotten hand your loved one has been dealt. Hang in there. |
Hospice was horrible for my dad. I will never forget the doctor who was in charge-really insensitive woman who did not care at all about my father and disregarded his preferences. |
Could a hospice nurse weigh in? Is this really the practice? Lethal doses of morphine to hasten death? This is my own mother's perception of hospice and when my dying father (on hospice) was crying out in anguish she wanted to withhold morphine. It was an absolute nightmare. On the flip side, I was really sick and hospitalized several years ago and was on morphine for nearly two weeks....and I'm still here. What is this lethal dose prescribed for cancer patients? |
There are good ethical hospices and others who are money grabs. It could happen. It didn't happen with my MIL when she was in hospice and she had a slow and miserable death of a few weeks. |