If family/patient consented = good.

I think it sounds like this was for profit which is bad.

It's a real shame to learn there are owners/managers of hospices who don't have a shadow of respect for human beings.

If he hastens deaths because he is asked, it should be allowed, legally. To make more money? He's in the wrong business.

If it's what the individual or family wants that's one thing, but to speed it up just to make more money is something else entirely, and something that he needs to be held criminally accountable for.

asked me and i said "yes".

But as you say, it should be a choice.

Yet another reason to move away from for profit healthcare.

this is not a big deal. Standard procedure.

Making the patient more comfortable as they are in their last days/hours.

I want that option as I'm dying.

But writing an email about it aint too bright.

keeping the patient comfortable. It went all the way to killing them. If they wanted an overdose fine. But if they didn't... and he just wanted to help his bottom line... NOT FINE.

This was 25 +/- years ago, but the nurses work with the family at 'end of life'.

People go there to be comfortable in their last days.

If they don't want to die yet they should not be in hospice, they should be in a hospital.

Having worked with Hospice twice, for both parents dying of cancer, they are there to make the last days as comfortable as possible and drugs are a big part of that, They are #1 in my book and it takes a special person to do that job.

And she,(my sister) is an angel to them. I'm very proud of what she does.

Hopefully, if they are lucky, they will die at home. There is not place that is a paid for hospice death house.

My mother had hospice.

I have my thoughts on what occurred and no, I did not like a lot of it.

Will mention a few of the particulars here:

1. They attempted to manipulate her will after dosing her to the max with morphine. I found it in a bag with her things after she'd died and was told about it and reminded to be sure to "write out those checks" and where to mail them.

2. I was taking things that mother wanted for herself personally while there only to show up there and find everyone in the place using these personal items that I had purchased for her.

3. The owner of the care home had also managed to fit herself into the will manipulation effort which angered me something fierce as she got her money due, all of it.

4. After she'd died I was told of every grizzly detail surrounding her death, told how awful it was and how difficult it was to load her body into the hearst when they came to pick her up and take her to the funeral parlor and yes, hit up again for a "few bucks extra" being it was so awful. Mother was not a huge woman. Weighed about 130 lbs. at death I'd guess and was about 5'5" tall at the most so where the great effort fell into the picture was beyond my comprehension.

5. I was angry as already stated and gee, when the whole thing was over, this executrix had no mercy for any of these greedy people and no, not a single one of them got a god damned thing from the will that was in probate for fux sake!

Still pissed some 15 years later. God damnit anyway!

GREED GREED GREED and no damn love from any of those parasites. Hell they'd have robbed her blind if they could have found a way to do it and they snapped her gold framed glasses off her face and kept them to "donate" to someone else that needed them (or some crook they knew that could melt them down I suspect). God Damnit anyway!!

Fuck heads the lot of them in this case anyway and no, I will never get over it nor do I particularly care to forget it in case it becomes part of my life again some day!

& recommend!

I've worked in nursing homes and hospice, and what you and your Mother went through just chills me and makes me very, very sad. Ours are not for profit, so that may be the difference in treatment and attitude, but I've never heard such terrible treatment of anyone going through it. I'm really sorry.

I realize there are a lot of good people in the world.

One was the priest that tended to Mother during her final days.

Every time she called him he went and saw her.

When she died he said it was a good thing because she was no longer suffering.

Said priest seemed to know all about this place where my mother ended up but was silent which in hindsight was a good thing as had I known at the time, I would have tried to find another place for her to go.

Thank god she was not there for too long, only about 3 months and it was over.

I still see that woman around that is running this "care home". I just give her a cold hard stare when I do.

It amazes me what people will say/do for money. I'll admit is has left me with a real attitude when it comes to this subject. I am grateful for the Catholic priest for he was a good man (note that word was -- that woman running the care home was convinced he was gay and he was ousted from the Church thanks to people like her spreading grotesque rumors about him and who gives a sh*t whether or not said priest is gay?).

Like I said, sad as hell and no, I'll never forget and thank you for the hug. I need it believe me as I'm deeply troubled re: this whole thing. Who wouldn't be?

a trusted family member makes the decision...In fact it's murder, and in this case, murder for profit.

all involved are aware... not unusual... when my husband was terminal doctors provide ample oxycotin and morphine

He was terminal and in a great deal of pain and choking to death. I asked them to make sure that he would not be in pain. They did.

.

up of what is inevitable.

We treat our dogs better at the end of their lives than we do for our loved ones.

who ended up in the nursing home. Her family donated a lot of money for beautiful improvements. She lived to be 100 years old and she was not really conscious any more - just kept alive.

So there was a profit motive in that also.

in extreme pain which would come and go from hour to hour. As the pained worsened morphine was increased so she here pain would lessen. After the morphine is increased so much you eventually reach a critical mass or point of no return. The amount of morphine it takes to decrease the pain is actually toxic and the person dies. It's just a fact of life. I am so glad I was able to speak to my sister to tell her I loved her. She felt guilty because we had a big difference in age and thought we could have been closer. I told her that that didn't matter. What mattered was her and her feelings at that moment. I saw peace in eyes and face. What we have in our country is unspoken euthanasia. It's not the type where one can, in most States, just say, "I'm ready to die now. Put me to death." But no matter what religion you are or your beliefs if you go into a hospice and are treated for pain the result is the same. Though I'm sure some enter into hospice to just die naturally without medicine but I've never witnessed it or have personal knowledge of it. Usually people who desire to die that way do it at home.

Hospice nurses and family/caregivers tend to them there. There are hospice wings in hospitals but they are short term to give families a few days rest.

I was a hospice nurse for many years.

They are usually financed via donations and financial gifts. But there are some that are associated with hospitals.

Thank you for the many years your contributions have educated and informed me.

I don't want to see hospice nurses trashed.

A year and a half ago two family members died within two weeks of each other. Both had been deteriorating rapidly. Both entered hospice, within days they died. Both received gentle loving care. One was old, my dad in a nursing home that treated him with respect. Alzheimer's an ugly sad disease. My BIL, aggressive lung cancer it was from asbestos poisoning, at home less than a year after his diagnosis. The nurses gave us a heads up that it was time and as a family unit, we gathered and said goodbye. They were both treated with loving care and respect.

Not everyone is Brad Harris.

Does everyone die on day 7?

Day Seven,
Off to Heaven.

Sunlei 2016

is very expensive. Generally in hospice you lose money if the patient dies quickly.

I'm a hospice nurse.

The other point of information here is that I really worry about the public not understanding how hospice works and the government not understanding how to properly dose medications at the end of life.

If medications are increased at the proper rate over time a patient can live a long time with a crazy high dose of narcotics. Sometimes the narcotic stops working and you have to switch it to a different narcotic.

I just worry about people not understanding how important narcotics can be to help patients with certain diseases at end of life.

I realize that what happened in the OP is a very rare occurrence.

What really worries me is when I have to explain all of this to patients and families who are already suspicious of medical professionals because of past experiences.

She was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer May 25th.
She went into hospice care sometime in January. The nurses convinced my daughters she needed a given amount of morphine in addition to fentanyl (SP) and a salve. at 2 hour intervals. I was not totally happy with this as she soon lost her ability to communicate. To me it was almost like she was in a coma.
When i shared my thoughts the common response was. Well she can lay here in this state as she dies or she can lay here in pain.
It is over now and I am grieving but still also wondering if i should have insisted on lower medications.

but the way I look at it is this - serious pain is true suffering and also pain itself kills. In my opinion you made the right choice out of love to reduce suffering.
I just had to make that same decision for a cousin. I am still second guessing myself but I know he was suffering terribly and that is why I made the decision I did.
They are counting on us to make our decisions out of concern for them and their comfort and I believe that is what we did - but I will still think about it.
Peace to you and I am sorry for your loss.

I have had patients on high doses of the fentanyl patch with high doses of morphine breakthrough who were walking and talking. But, each person is an individual and some people are sedated more with a smaller dose.

I do know that stage 4 lung cancer is very painful. Sometimes the pain is so bad and even at very high doses of medications the pain persists families make the decision to sedate their loved one.

Here is an article on palliative sedation that you might find helpful:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2947968/

I am sorry that this happened to her. It is very sad.

if the tumor could not have been removed surgically, I would have opted for high doses of morphine until death. The pain was so bad I was sometimes on the floor b/c I could not walk to the nearest chair when it came on. By the time of the surgery, the pain was increasing in frequency and intensity to the point I could barely function.

At that time, along came the private health insurance company Care First, emailing me that my contract would be ended in 10 days, a full month before the renewal date. Luckily, I had a Dem Congressman who stepped in and I was able to keep the insurance for the month and then switch to Obamacare.

Luckily I had good surgeons, I did chemo and have made a full recovery so far (2-1/2 yrs. later). But morphine sounds a lot better than the pain I went through.

The more morphine, the less she could communicate. But without the morphine, she was loudly wailing, disturbing others in her apt. building and later, dementia home, and she could not tell us what was wrong.

It is not a good situation, either way.

They sooner they are rid of these dying parasites the better is perhaps how they are viewed, esp. if they have nothing, no family, no money, just a stack of unpaid bills that will never be paid.

How very sad.

I worry about this myself frankly. I hope I die before it has even a chance of happening.

a lot of doctoring is done based on doctor-patient conversations years prior,
then patient and family members' input

one woman I knew said patient-clergy yielded hints too

Morphine is one of those things that gets out of control, they're treating pain,
and also anxiety, the liver begins to shutdown

In my loved ones case, oxygenation was poor, 85% 78%, 74%

As soon as we went home for the night, the doctor doubled the morphine
dose. The nurse called to tell us. Patient was never conscious again. I don't think
they did it for money, certainly not for bedspace. I think it was convenient for them, no 2 am
consults. And maybe best for the patient too. Though the same woman told me overdosing
was a common complaint in those particular facilities.

End of life it is difficult to separate illness from the effects of drugs.

and had patients live for months at the higher dose and increasing doses at a regular intervals. Cancer is very painful. As long as doctors know what they are doing you can have very high doses of pain medication which by the way can be very expensive.

For example you can't put someone in a pain crisis who has never been on a narcotic on a 25 mcg fentanyl patch or they could be overly sedated or at risk for stopping breathing. But, if you start with an oral narcotic and give morphine for several days you can start the patch and as pain goes up and up weeks or months later you may find that the patient is on 250 mcg of fentanyl with breakthrough oral morphine and the patient is still awake and talking.

I have no training to disagree

My loved one was dead 6 hours later

Not unexpected, with cancer morphed to the lungs, poor oxygenation
they were worried about heart attack, why put a patient through that?

I think we just weren't told the bad news, and they managed
what they thought they could, or as best as their resources allowed

court.

However, I am strong supporter of the right to die. Why should humans be forced to suffer agony with terminal diseases that have no cure? Let people die with dignity.

I remember one of the Kevorkian trials where the DA acutally said "Why do we allow dogs to be put to sleep and not people? Because we value human life more." As soon as he said that, my mother and I looked at each other and, at the same time said "not guilty." We allow dogs a painless death with dignity but humans have to suffer right up until the end?

What kind of bullshit is that noise?

He was young and he wanted to live! They told him he had less than six mos. to live and rthey wanted hospice in his life but he didn't want them anywhere near himself as he believed that he would beat the cancer and LIVE, hence hospice was never in the mix when he was at the end of his life and that was his decision.

This was his fantasy and I played along with it for nine damn months acting "as if" he was going to beat it knowing that he was going to die soon. That was his belief and I fed it right up until the day he died.

He did not approve of assisted suicide. He thought that the only people that died were old people that were sick and that he was exempt as he was simply too young.

When he died, I did not attend his funeral being he himself didn't believe in death for himself. So I played his game from beginning to end and even afterwards.

There are some people that don't see it the way you do. I too do not believe in dragging things like this out so to speak but some people will do anything to stay alive because I think they are afraid of death, just a personal belief of mine as was my late brother's belief that he was too young to die and he simply couldn't do that; he was exempt.

Its different for everyone when they are faced with such a dilemma and we must respect them as well even if we personally do not agree, they deserve that right to believe whatever they care to believe whether realistic or not.

Sad situation at best.

Cancer = a real bitch and I sure wish they'd find a cure for it!

would make more money. I doubt rapid turnover would.
Hospice patients often require more and more medication, but sometimes they do not. Every patient is different and medication needs can be adjusted.

I went to an "end of life" seminar years ago. A young nurse stated she would "feel awful" if she gave a patient the last dose of pain medicine before they died as if she killed them. I responded that she should realize that withholding that medicine might make sure the patient suffered until they died. The patients in hospice are dying of an illness not pain medicine. They are there to get help with suffering.

What's to keep them from demanding unethical, immoral, and illegal professional behavior in a hospital to improve profitability?

Kinda weird that somebody did the best possible thing for a terrible reason. We have a deeply fucked up system.

I had a step father die a few years ago, after s few days in hospice care. He was elderly, never regained brain function after a bad accident. It was incredibly hard for everyone, and I don't imagine it was easy for the hospice workers themselves.

Every person and every family is a different situation, and hospices are there for when people are going to die. I don't like the idea of a media circus about it, though if there is cause for an investigation I hope it is done with care and consideration for both the families and the workers involved.

Into a body bag.

I can understand why after what I've been through which I call Holy Fucking Hell at best.

Where do they find these maggots anyway? I still have yet to figure it some 15 years later. The way things are going, they'll soon drop it to three mos. of hospice care and sad ass you pay the rest if you live even a few days beyond that limit. Good way to be rid of these aging boomers, WWII leftovers, etc. that no one gives a damned about it too many cases! Save those Medicare bucks! Save those Medicare bucks they cry!

How about EXPANDING hospice care to something like three years just in case the person does improve and/or recover and yes, it does happen! It could provide incentive to LIVE in cases like my late brother who I describe above. He needed people around him that believed he was going to LIVE not DIE.

No incentive for recovery, only death, perhaps manipulating a dying person's will if possible and taking everything they've got if they happen to be in an institutional or a private care setting where this can easily occur. Good gawd almighty! I still cannot believe it!

Pissed still? YEP.

Trust? When hell freezes over.